Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Senator Fitzpatrick makes an important point and I will not dispute the substance of it, which is that there is a capital budget and a portion of the homes delivered with it, whether bought or delivered, will be for people who are in emergency accommodation. This is not in dispute.

The statement I made is factually correct. There is a homeless services budget. It is not a budget for emergency accommodation. It covers all homeless services. Professor Eoin O'Sullivan, one of the country's leading experts in homeless services, for example, and many of the homeless NGOs, constantly remind us that only 5% of the homeless services budget goes on prevention. I am not criticising the amount of money we spend on emergency accommodation. I would like to see it fall and I would like to see less homelessness. Of that homeless services budget, however, the fact is 5% or less goes on homeless prevention. That does not in any way dispute the point that Senator Fitzpatrick is making that a portion of the capital budget goes to people who are in emergency accommodation.

Homeless service providers and academics on the homeless issue, including people who have presented to this committee, have called for Government to look at ways of increasing the percentage of the homeless services budget that goes towards prevention because too much of it is going on emergency. That is, in part, because of the scale of emergency - an emergency that is getting worse by the month. It is a valid point to make but it does not dispute Senator Fitzpatrick's point, which is a portion of the capital budget goes to people who are in emergency accommodation.