Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am fully committed to dealing with homelessness, it is my top priority. I do not say that in any kind of glib way; I genuinely mean it. There is a necessity to focus on providing suitable emergency accommodation for families. The greatest concern is in respect of rough sleepers, which is particularly an issue in Dublin and other cities. Yesterday, I launched the Be Winter Ready programme, assisted by the excellent work of Cathal Morgan and his team in the Dublin Region Homeless Executive.

We have brought forward a number of comprehensive action plans to tackle homelessness. If the Deputy looks into it, he will see that virtually all of those plans have been executed and substantial progress has been made on their objectives. Progress updates on all the action plans are brought on a monthly basis to the Cabinet sub-committee on social policy and public service reform. Given the huge amount of work that is ongoing on a weekly and daily basis, I will not go through the 50 different actions.

Many of them have been successful. The ministerial direction, which I presume the Deputy supported, in respect of the 50% increase in the allocations policy for people who are homeless or vulnerable has also been successful. I refer to the public awareness campaigns, the work being done by Threshold and the possibility of increasing rent supplement payments. Intercepting people who vulnerable is also working well. The changes to the housing assistance payment, HAP, in respect of homeless families in Dublin were necessary measures. Many different measures are required to meet the needs of people who are becoming homeless. Everybody who is homeless has complex needs, either at a personal level or from an economic point of view.

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