Dáil debates

Thursday, 6 April 2017

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions

Homelessness Strategy

4:35 pm

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

We have a commitment that by 1 July we will no longer be using hotels for emergency accommodation for families. This is an ambitious target but I think we will meet it, and we will do this through a series of solutions. Obviously the preference is to put as many families as we can into social housing. Some of them will be in HAP tenancies, some of them will be in homeless HAP tenancies, some of them will be in the rapid build social housing, which will be completed before this date, and many of them will be in more conventional social housing that comes onstream.

The Deputy's colleague, Deputy Ellis, came to the opening of the new family transition hub in Drumcondra and I think he was pretty impressed by it. It is being run by Respond! Housing Association. There will be a number of similar projects, in the broader Dublin area in particular. We are also looking at Cork, Limerick and Galway as to whether we may need transition centres for families, where there are specific supports designed for homeless families who need help on a temporary basis while we find them a permanent housing solution.

I do not want to do it here today, but when it is appropriate to do so I can provide the Deputy with the details of the various projects we will use in Dublin. My preference is to be able to transition people from hotels, particularly people who have been there for some time, that we prioritise them for HAP and social housing, and that we look to use the family transition homes for other families who may, for whatever reason, come into homelessness.

To put this into context, what we are speaking about is a specially designed facility on which we are spending millions of euro, which will have facilities such as homework clubs, proper dining facilities that are family oriented, supports, counselling, transportation to schools and all of the things that can make family life as normal as we can make it while the State finds long-term housing solutions for the families concerned. I am confident the combination of all of these approaches will deliver the target date we have set, which I recognise is only a few months away. All of the chief executives, particularly in the Dublin local authorities, are under some pressure to deliver for us. I hope they will deliver on what they have promised.

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