Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I just want to be clear, and I want to put this on the record because I am sick and tired of being told it is my party which stopped social housing. We did not. We are the ones who are putting social housing front and centre in what the Government and local government is doing. I have been around the country with local authorities telling them that we expect, and we want to continue with this, them to be the lead agencies for social housing. This was stopped by other parties in government but it was certainly not Fine Gael. Deputy Broughan knows that and I ask him to please stop saying it as if it were true that it was us because it was not us. We are doing our best to put it back as quickly as we possibly can.

Having said that, I still thank the Deputy for raising the issue and providing the opportunity to update the House on actions being taken to address homelessness, in particular family homelessness, including our goal to ensure that hotels are only used to accommodate families on an emergency basis and in very limited and exceptional circumstances from the end of June.

The Government is fully committed to addressing the issue of homelessness. Under this Government there has been a focused and co-ordinated approach to tackling homelessness across Departments and agencies. As we know, Rebuilding Ireland was launched in July 2016, more than nine months ago, as the Deputy said. It is a whole of government plan developed in close co-operation with other key Departments and agencies, under the oversight of a dedicated Cabinet committee chaired by An Taoiseach. The committee meets every month to discuss all of the issues and I attended the meeting on Monday. The plan sets out the path to achieving the critical national ambition of ensuring that all our people have access to quality and affordable housing and to ramp up what local authorities are able to deliver through new builds, voids and purpose built social housing.

The long-term solution to the current homeless issue is to increase the supply of homes. Accordingly, Rebuilding Ireland is designed to accelerate all types of housing supply, including social, private and rental. During the lifetime of the plan, some 47,000 new social houses will be provided, supported by Exchequer investment of more than €5 billion, and housing output generally will be progressively increased towards the target of producing 25,000 houses per year through all channels. We hope to hit this target ahead of our five-year plan.

It is intended that the long-term housing needs of those currently homeless, including those families currently accommodated in hotels, will be met through housing supports such as the enhanced housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme, and general social housing allocations. Significant outputs are being achieved in this regard. Housing authorities achieved more than 3,000 sustainable exits from homeless accommodation into independent tenancies during 2016, a record level of exits in a calendar year. It is untrue to say HAP does not provide a useful solution to help some of those families who are homeless-----

See this speech in context