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

Brú Aimsir is an emergency hostel in the city of Dublin with 101 beds. It opened in October of last year on a temporary basis and is run by Crosscare, the homeless service provider. It provides emergency accommodation on a night-by-night basis and works to place people in more secure emergency accommodation and in permanent housing.

Brú Aimsir has proved incredibly successful, and since it opened, more than 200 people have been successfully moved on to better quality and better supported emergency accommodation, and in a number of cases to permanent housing. The lease between Dublin City Council and the Digital Hub was temporary and the hostel was due to close in April of this year. It is important to emphasise that this is a publicly owned premises, ultimately under the auspices of the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. I understand that the Digital Hub would like to sell this premises as there is no immediate alternative use for it.

Unfortunately, since Brú Aimsir opened, the homeless crisis throughout the State and here in Dublin city has worsened. The Dublin Region Homeless Executive did a rough sleeper count on 24 April and on that particular night found 102 people sleeping rough in the city, a 10% increase on the previous count. On the same night, an additional 70 people were in the Merchant's Quay night café and all emergency beds in the city that night were occupied, including those in Brú Aimsir. Since the end of April, Brú Aimsir is being wound down. It was first restricted to 80 beds, and since 9 May, the freefone service which places people in Brú Aimsir has been instructed not to make any more placements. This means Brú Aimsir is essentially reduced to 43 beds a night.

At the same time, the average number of people turned away from emergency accommodation by the central placement service on any given night is between 50 and 60 people. These are people who ring up in search of day-to-day or night-to-night emergency accommodation, but they are told there is no accommodation for them. I have spoken to a number of people who work in the homeless sector in the city today and they tell us there has been an increase in the number of people sleeping rough as a direct result of the reduction in the number of beds in Brú Aimsir. Even if Brú Aimsir were operating at full capacity, the city would need more emergency beds.

Does the Minister believe it is acceptable for Brú Aimsir to close if the result is more people being forced to sleep rough in the city? Has the Minister raised this matter directly with his counterpart, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Denis Naughten, who has responsibility for the facility in terms of the ownership of the premises? Has he raised it with Dublin City Council, with the Dublin Region Homeless Executive or with Brú Aimsir itself? If the Minister has not done any of this, he needs to pick up the phone to the Minister, Deputy Naughten, and seek his direct intervention with the board of the Digital Hub to ensure this facility is not closed, as is currently planned, at the end of this month.

I also respectfully suggest that the Minister should talk directly to the city manager, Owen Keegan. Not only is he the city manager, he is also on the board of the Digital Hub and has a key role to play in this regard. There is a simple message all of the players on this issue need to hear, which is that the 100 beds that will effectively be removed from the Dublin emergency accommodation system if Brú Aimsir is closed should not be lost to the system. We need more, not fewer, beds. Nobody should be sleeping rough in Dublin when tonight there are 60 vacant beds in Brú Aimsir.

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