Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This is where scripted answers really is exposed. This is the same answer I received from the Minister on 27 June, in which it was stated the place finder service had been operating in the Dublin local authority areas since 2015. He went on to say they included Dún Laoghaire, but that is not true. This is a fact and it is referred to on the websites of the Dublin homeless executive and the Citizens' Information bureau, but I asked a member of my staff to ring the number. When one rings the number of the Dún Laoghaire branch and asks for the place finder service, one is asked, "What is place finder?" They do not even know what it is. We rang the homeless section directly in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and were told clearly that there was no place finder service in Dún Laoghaire. We then emailed the central service on 14 June but received no answer. I wrote to the Minister about a week ago detailing all of this information, but there has been no answer. Whoever wrote his answer is wheeling out stuff that is just not true. If that is what I get when I telephone the place finder service, what must it be like for somebody who is homeless with kids who is in and out of a hostel and is given the run-around as he or she looks for something that does not exist?

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