Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 30 May 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government
Homelessness Issues: Discussion
Ms Mary Hayes:
Regarding current capacity, it is a very tight ceiling. We are just about making it with regard to single capacity. For families, we are reliant on commercial hotels. Therefore, while we do not leave a family out, the fact that we are using commercial hotels would probably signal that we do not have enough family accommodation capacity. We are continually sourcing it. That falls under Mr. Durkan's brief. We pretty much have an open tender at this stage for emergency accommodation to bring in new emergency accommodation all the time. We just about manage. Regarding what I think the impact will be, I guess for me the impact is that everything we should be spending money on is housing and not emergency accommodation. I think it is a point of agreement between all of us. I am concerned. I believe we will find accommodation for families, come what may. I believe we will do our absolute best with single accommodation. There will be pinch points. I feel there is a strong need to focus on what we will do for housing in the next six months or year.
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