John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

My Department's role in homelessness involves the provision of a national framework of policy, legislation and funding to underpin the role of housing authorities in addressing homelessness at local level. The Minister of State, Deputy Finneran, and I have made major advances in this area by developing the homelessness strategy and an implementation plan, retaining current financing for homeless accommodation services in 2010 at a record level of €56 million, and putting regional homelessness action plans and consultative fora on a statutory basis. Despite the severe cutbacks that have taken place elsewhere, not only have we retained that funding we have increased it in recent years in the homelessness area. That is something-----

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