Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the House for providing me with this opportunity to update Deputies on the further actions we are taking to address the issue of homelessness. I assure Deputies of the commitment of my Government colleagues to taking on the issue in a focused and co-ordinated way. I commend and thank politicians on all sides and political persuasions for the manner in which they have worked with me over the recent period on this issue. I appreciate their co-operation, which goes beyond politics, and commend everyone on their contributions and co-operation over the past number of weeks.

Last week, my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Paudie Coffey, and I convened a special forum on homelessness. We met with the Catholic and Church of Ireland Archbishops of Dublin, Deputies from this House, officials and politicians from the Dublin local authorities, a vast number of people from the NGO sector involved in the delivery of homeless services and officials from a range of Departments and State agencies. I want to express my appreciation and gratitude to all of those who attended and contributed. It was an excellent forum and we all learned a significant amount about the issue in a collaborative way and we will be stronger as a result.

I have often said that nobody has a monopoly on solutions to homelessness and this was proved at the forum, where new measures were proposed, immediate responses were identified and additional resources were committed. At the end of the forum, I was well placed to outline some of the measures identified and a roadmap of the next steps we need to take. Since then, I have worked with all the stakeholders involved to develop and implement the action plan on homelessness approved by the Government on Tuesday.

Yesterday, the Minister of State, Deputy Coffey, and I announced details of the Government’s 20-point action plan to address homelessness and a copy of this plan is available on my Department's website. The plan commits to €20 million plus in additional expenditure and includes the immediate provision of over 260 additional emergency beds for people sleeping rough in Dublin, a "Nite Café" to provide a contact point for homeless people who do not want to be placed in emergency accommodation and the provision of transport with support services to bring people sleeping rough to emergency accommodation where they will be cared for and provided with the health and care supports they need. A number of measures have been identified and will be put in place in other cities and urban areas also. We are aware this issue is not confined to Dublin, although there is an acute issue there.

I acknowledge the efforts by all who are making properties and beds available to meet the urgent need. Some of these 260 beds are already in place while works are being carried out to other properties to ensure that all beds will be available before Christmas.

While every effort is being made to provide beds, the provision of emergency accommodation is not a viable long-term solution to homelessness. The Government’s homelessness policy statement emphasises a housing-led approach to homelessness, which is about providing permanent housing as the primary response to homelessness. This approach is also articulated in the Government's implementation plan on the State's response to homelessness. Increasing the supply of housing is critical to addressing housing need and homelessness. This will be achieved through the Government’s construction 2020 plan and the Government's six year social housing strategy which I recently launched. This strategy will deliver in excess of 35,000 new social housing units over a six year period. There is also a significant programme of work identified and committed to for the period to the end of 2016 under the Government’s implementation plan on the State’s response to homelessness.

In the short term, however, it is essential to increase the volume of housing supply that is being made available to homeless households. Therefore, I will issue a direction to the four Dublin housing authorities to allocate 50% of all housing allocations to homeless households and other vulnerable groups for the next six months, taking account of the time spent by these households on the homeless and other housing lists as at 1 December 2014.

It is worth noting that funding, which is being provided through my Department, will result in a significant number of vacant local authority properties being brought back into productive use. In addition, I will sign regulations next week to provide for the new housing assistance payment to be rolled out in the Dublin region on a pilot basis and this is specifically focused on homeless households. This pilot will ensure that homeless households in the Dublin region can access accommodation in the private housing market. These three measures will have a significant positive impact on the homeless households on the Dublin local authorities’ homeless and housing waiting lists.

Prevention is an important aspect in the response to homelessness. The prevention campaign launched by Dublin City Council last June has been very successful in stemming the flow of families becoming homeless and in assisting families and others in dealing with private rented accommodation issues. The interim tenancy sustainment protocol involving the Department of Social Protection, the Dublin local authorities and Threshold has made significant interventions on behalf of families at risk of homelessness. This has made a difference and will continue. I fully support this excellent initiative. A "Stay in your Home" campaign will be put in place to raise further awareness of tenants' rights and ensure that families and other individuals at risk of losing their tenancies will be assisted to stay in their homes. The support service currently operated by Threshold in Dublin will be provided with additional staff this week and the service will be extended to Cork imminently.

Homelessness is not just a Dublin issue but it is most acute in the Dublin region. We will respond on issues in other cities and urban areas also. Housing authorities in our other cities are urgently assessing the scale of action they need to take and we are in touch with them constantly. However, homelessness is not just about accommodation. A number of other responses must also be implemented to ensure that the necessary supports are in place for households whose accommodation needs have been met.

The integrated services hub, which currently provides a one-stop shop service for homeless persons in the Dublin region, will further develop its case management model with the Department of Social Protection to include income support and job activation measures. I was in Parkgate Street yesterday and I saw at first hand the excellent model of collaboration involving the State and non-State sector in assisting clients who are homeless or facing homelessness as they grapple with the difficult situation they find themselves in. I would encourage and would accompany Opposition spokesperson on this issue to visit and see the worthwhile work going on there.

Homeless families are of particular concern to me and my colleagues. Their situation is not acceptable. Our agencies, charged with responsibilities for child protection and welfare needs and others, must co-ordinate operations to ensure that services are fully responsive to the particular protection and welfare needs that might arise for families in emergency accommodation.

The special forum shone a spotlight on how we co-ordinate our services, both in terms of housing supply and our health and care supports. In this regard, the HSE plays a key role and co-ordination of health services for the homeless will be co-ordinated at senior management level in the Dublin region from 15 December. Specialist consultant-led mental health and primary care services will be streamlined in quarter one of 2015 to ensure in-reach services into all emergency accommodation settings across the Dublin region. This will make it easier for homeless people to access the services, as service providers will come to them rather than the other way around. The HSE will also put in place a formal discharge protocol with Dublin hospitals and homeless services to ensure that, as far as possible, no patient will be discharged into homelessness. This will be operational early in the new year.

The purpose of last week’s forum on homelessness was to step outside of the current response and implementation models to see what could be done in the immediate short term. I believe there is an opportunity for our businesses and companies – large, medium and small – to get involved as well and to focus their corporate social responsibility programmes on responding to this issue.

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I am open to any offers that anybody wishes to come forward with and will listen to them very carefully.

Together with my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Coffey, I have stressed the need for collaborative action by Departments, State agencies, NGOs and the wider voluntary sector. That is the spirit with which we approached the forum and which runs through the action plan I have announced. We brought together all stakeholders involved in this issue on a policy and operational basis. We asked them for their views, what needed to be done and to come forward with real and tangible contributions to a solution. The Government has not been found wanting.

In addition to the €55 million allocated for tackling homelessness nationally in 2015, we approved a further €20 million for an urgent targeted action plan to tackle rough sleeping in Dublin and throughout the country, and to provide everyone who needs emergency overnight accommodation with it before Christmas. Anyone who is sleeping rough will have accommodation if he or she wishes to choose it. We will also provide other services to ensure that everyone's dignity can be maintained, such as the Nite Café and transport services, to ensure people have options and do not feel that if they turn down accommodation, they have nowhere else to go. The Nite Café is an important initiative, given the fact that it can hold more than 50 people. It is a step in the direction I feel is necessary given the circumstances and complex issues of many people who are homeless and sleeping rough.

A comprehensive and effective response to homelessness is an obligation shared by all in the House. I have said that on previous occasions. I compliment and thank everyone who has made a contribution, including Members opposite. It goes beyond any action by the Government and its agencies. It is an obligation on all of us in our communities and as individuals. In our communities we must be prepared to reach out a hand to each homeless person and not to shun him or her on the other side of the street.

I ask communities and public representatives everywhere to accept and work with the emergency solutions we are putting in place. This is above and beyond political thought and the usual day-to-day raggle-taggle of political discussion in the House. This is a very human issue. It is about people's dignity, putting together a quick plan to back up the homeless action plan which is in place and backing up the social housing strategy.

These are not just people who are homeless. Only for a quirk of fate, any of us in the House or any of our families could be in the same situation. They are fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, and are all part of a family. I ask all of us to engage with that sense of responsibility and respect people's dignity. I am willing to work with everybody inside and outside of the House to ensure that we deliver the best service possible to these very vulnerable people.

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