John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

I assure the Deputy there is no complacency in this area. It is one which is close to my heart. We want to do our very best.

In addition, a comprehensive range of measures has been put in place to underpin the role of housing authorities and approved housing bodies towards achieving the strategy's ambitious objective of eliminating long-term homelessness and the need to sleep rough. This includes an enhanced programme for procurement of accommodation. A new tenancy-support system to help homeless persons live independently has also been put in place. A total of €60 million was recently approved under the capital assistance scheme to enable the voluntary and co-operative sector to purchase additional accommodation to meet specific categories of housing need, including persons moving out of temporary homeless accommodation. More than 100 of these units will provide long-term accommodation for such persons and approved housing bodies have been asked to develop proposals for the further delivery of leased units. The uptake on the enhanced programme leasing model has been slower than anticipated. Progress is also dependent on the response of market interests, including property owners and financial institutions.

The Minister of State, Deputy Finneran, is working with the Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency and the local authorities in Dublin, where long-term homelessness is most pronounced, to ramp up the delivery of units. A Dublin regional accommodation procurement team is actively sourcing properties for immediate acquisition by local authorities. Funding is being provided from within the 2010 social housing investment programme. Dublin City Council is undertaking an accelerated programme to bring significantly more of its longer term vacancies back into use to meet urgent housing needs, including those of the long-term homeless. A regional homeless allocations team is streamlining the allocations process for all suitable properties.

A parallel initiative has been developed through Threshold's access housing unit to maximise the potential of the private rental sector to accommodate an increased number of homeless households, especially in current market conditions. It is hoped to accommodate in the region of 200 additional households under this initiative in 2010.

Taken together, these measures have the potential to make significant further progress towards reaching the target in the current year. The Minister of State recently chaired a meeting of all the statutory and voluntary bodies in the sector and encouraged them to renew their efforts to deliver on the objectives of the homelessness strategy.

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