Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----is much slower than it would have been in the past.

The Domestic Violence Bill is being piloted by the Minister for Justice and Equality and it is priority legislation for the next session. We have already passed some legislation relating to domestic violence. A particularly important provision relates to temporary orders which ensure that it is the abuser who is ordered to leave the family home, thus allowing the person who is experiencing domestic violence to stay in the home. That is good legislation which is already in place.

I only had a cursory look at the Trinity College report, "Women's Homelessness in Europe", which was published this morning. What has gone largely unreported is that the report shows Ireland has one of the lowest rates of homelessness overall among EU member states. It shows that there is a gender gap, with men more likely to be homeless in Ireland than women. However, the gap between men and women in terms of the likelihood or prevalence of homelessness is narrower than in other countries. There is a big difference between male and female homelessness. The male homeless tend to be single men and often they are men who have mental health and addiction issues. Women tend to be in a different group and often have children. That is why the family hubs are being developed, to provide alternative accommodation to hotels, which nobody believes are suitable.

While the report the Deputy refers to might not discuss social housing, the Government's strategy on housing and homelessness does. The Rebuilding Ireland plan contains a commitment to increase our social housing stock by more than a third, reversing the policies of previous Governments, which were to sell our social housing stock. Instead, we intend to expand the social housing stock by more than a third in the coming years. Indeed, 1,600 social housing units are now in the process of planning and construction and only yesterday the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, was in north Dublin handing out keys to families who have been provided with affordable accommodation. That is an example of the different things that are happening.

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