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

I will give the figures as they may be helpful to Deputy Ó Broin. Since he believes I have tables before me, I will give him what I have. The figures for the end of March, referenced by Deputy Ó Broin, show 870 homeless families were housed in commercial hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation in the Dublin region. The corresponding figure for April fell to 695. Again, that is a trend in the right direction although we would have hoped for more.

I do not have the breakdown of where individuals have gone. I can get that for the Deputy at some stage. Deputy Ó Broin is right. It is the intention of the Department that people will leave hotels for permanent accommodation. That is our desire and that is what we want to do. In some cases it will be necessary for a two-step approach involving more family-friendly accommodation on the journey to a permanent house. We are still committed to this target and to get them into a permanent home over the remaining time. That is what we are trying to do. In some cases, they might end up in some of the new family hubs. I have been to visit them. I am unsure whether Deputy Ó Broin has visited them. Some of them are impressive in terms of the range of services they can provide. They are still not ideal. They are not full permanent homes. The people in hotels would like to move into permanent houses.

We are using the HAP scheme as well. Houses have been acquired. We are using the repair and lease-back initiative. All the various schemes are being used for homeless people. We expect 68 new rapid-build construction houses to come on-stream in the weeks ahead. They will be used. Houses have been acquired through the Housing Agency. It is being done through a combination of measures. It is not a case of everyone being moved into the new family hubs. In some cases, some of the old commercial hotels have been reclassified. We are taking over them, re-developing them and changing the services they offer.

Our commitment is that people will not be in a commercial hotel because that is not a place to live. We want to achieve that, even if some end up in some of the new family hubs. If Deputy Ó Broin visits them he will see that what they can offer is far better than a commercial hotel. The measure is only short-term in nature and they will end up with a house.

The figures for April are down to 695. I will get the breakdown for more recent months. We expect the figures for May, June and July will show further reductions.

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