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

The Deputy is wrong as 3,000 left last year. Accommodating family units in hotel arrangements is inappropriate for anything other than a short period of time, and I totally and utterly agree with the Deputy on that. Accordingly, Rebuilding Ireland makes explicit the commitment to ensure that by mid-2017 hotels will only be used as emergency accommodation in limited circumstances.

The need to limit the use of commercial hotels as emergency accommodation is particularly relevant in the Dublin region, given that approximately 85% of all homeless families are in the Dublin region. It is the Minister's intention and my intention that families be transitioned from hotel arrangements as quickly as possible, and to limit the extent to which such accommodation has to be used for new presentations. The mid-2017 target is a necessarily ambitious one, and one to which the Government remains fully committed. We must be ambitious in addressing this social issue, and while we acknowledge it is a challenging objective, given the continuing numbers of those presenting as homeless, I am pleased to see progress being made in this regard.

I am confident the April homelessness figures, once finalised, will show a significant reduction in the reliance on hotel accommodation for homeless families, which is the key.

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