Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is important to distinguish between numbers in emergency accommodation and support accommodation and the numbers who are officially homeless. Sometimes the numbers are not the same. Sometimes people need to be in temporary care, perhaps because of domestic violence or mental health issues. It is not necessarily the case that the number in State care is the same as the number of people who have declared themselves homeless. Sometimes it is, however.

The official homelessness data reports, as published by the Department every month, are provided by housing authorities and produced using the pathway accommodation and support system, PASS, a single integrated national data information system on State-funded emergency accommodation arrangements overseen by housing authorities. The reports do not capture details of individuals utilising State-funded emergency accommodation arrangements which are not overseen by housing authorities, such as clients of domestic violence refuges or the new communities unit. This has always been very clear. The compilation, management and publication of data in regard to those clients are a matter for Tusla. The Deputy has not managed to obtain the data he has asked for in that regard.

For my part, I am satisfied with the quality, timeliness and format of the PASS reporting procedure. The system was put in place only a few years ago. It is not too long ago since we got homelessness figures only once per year. We now have them once per month. When they were being put together, we looked for figures from the various areas to which the Deputy is referring. It was either deemed inappropriate in terms of homelessness numbers or the figures were not readily available.

I take the point the Deputy is making but it is important when assessing numbers and trends to ascertain whether things are moving in the right direction to be consistent in how one calculates data. That is why I do not believe it is a good idea to switch from the PASS, which is by and large working. If there are other issues we need to address and if there are homeless people in other accommodation, we need to determine how best to deal with it. Introducing a new form of calculation is not necessarily the best course of action.

On the second part of the Deputy's question, on the Home Sweet Home campaign, I would like the opportunity to address it when I next get to contribute.

See this speech in context