Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Government, I echo the Ceann Comhairle's sentiments in relation to the staff here in the Houses and to all of our colleagues over the Christmas period.

It is good that child homelessness is one of the last issues we choose to discuss this year. People talk about Brexit potentially being the greatest challenge that we face as a State but thanks to the good work of the diplomatic corps, the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Minister of State for European Affairs, it looks like Brexit may not be the threat that people assumed it would be. Nevertheless, there is a genuine crisis and challenge for society when we look at the numbers who are homeless and the numbers of families and children who are in emergency homeless accommodation.

This year has seen the number of homeless families increase to a point where we now have 1,463 families, and more than 3,194 children, in emergency accommodation. Thankfully, when it comes to the situation of families experiencing this crisis in their lives, we have supports in place so that no family would every be forced into that terrible circumstances of having to sleep rough. That means that we have had to use accommodation such as hotels, which, obviously, is not an ideal solution but which at least gets families initially into safe and secure accommodation. We hope that it is only for a temporary period because what we want is to get families into homes, and that is what we are doing under Rebuilding Ireland.

It is also important that we, as a new generation of politicians coming into 2018, learn from the mistakes that Irish society has faced in the past and that we confront these challenges head on. Too often in Irish society, people have tried to turn away from uncomfortable truths to try to keep them out of the public domain. It is only right and proper that we continue to talk about this crisis every day and every week in this House until we have finally gotten to grips with it and moved these families out of emergency accommodation and into homes. Even though sometimes it is uncomfortable to confront it and even though we recognise that it is a complex issue, as politicians and leaders in Irish society, we have a responsibility to put our best efforts together to solve this crisis and to help these families. It is imperative that we do not use it for political ends. I would never accuse any of my colleagues in the House here of doing that but we have to come together to find the solutions.

Sometimes when we talk about policy, data and the implementation of responses to homelessness and children in homelessness, it can sound cold and heartless, but what is most important is that those on the front line who are helping them are not only implementing policy responses that will work, but do so with compassion and care and provide a degree of comfort for those people because they are in such difficult circumstances. The public can take comfort from the fact that it is the voluntary sector which is implementing these policies on our behalf, in conjunction and in partnership with the Government, and that the public knows that they are receiving those levels of care.

I have had the good fortune to meet those who are working on the front line not only in the local authorities, but also in the voluntary sector and in the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, and they do their work in a fantastic manner. They do it with a smile on their faces and always with the person they are helping foremost in their minds. I hope the public can take comfort in knowing that taxpayers' money is going to fund these organisations so that they can give that level of care, and it is significant. It will be over €160 million this year between my Department, the Department of Health and the local authorities to provide those levels of care. Of course, as many Members will be aware, it is not about the amount of money that we spend but about how we spend it, and making sure that we are spending it in the most effective and best way to help these families and these children who are experiencing this difficult crisis.

As I have stated previously, it is my responsibility, as Minister, is to fix our broken housing system and to make sure that houses are built and there are homes for these families and for these children. I have to make sure that we get more social housing homes. That means having more homes built by the local authorities and by the housing bodies, but it also means a range of other solutions as well. These solutions include acquisitions, long-term leasing, vacancy and Part V social housing delivery. I am committed to ensuring that people get into homes and that they are secure social housing homes, and no matter what stream they come from in terms of the different solutions that we have, that we see an increase in each of those streams.

Where we cannot have a home immediately ready for someone who needs one, it is about making sure that our emergency provision is there to help those people until we have them in to secure homes. As a part of my responsibility in that regard, I speak to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs and the Minister for Health on a regular basis. The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, has a particular concern here, of course, because we are talking about families and children. I welcome the work she has done in relation to the hubs programme and that Tusla has done, and also that the Minister for Health has done.

I am in constant contact with the local authorities and with the voluntary sector to make sure that all the necessary supports are being made available. At the housing summit we held in September, I set up an inter-agency group led by Mr. John Murphy to make sure that the Government response is co-ordinated in such a way that it is most effective for those who are receiving the care and treatment. I met the CEOs of the main voluntary organisations only yesterday. I talked through some of the initial recommendations that will come from that inter-agency group and they agreed that these will be helpful in assisting the voluntary sector to do its work better.

I have also met the Ombudsman for Children to discuss the standards of care for families that are in hotels and the standards of care for families that are in hubs. I have assured him and his office of everything that we are doing to make sure that the concerns and the needs of children and families are foremost in the different supports and different policies that we implement.

I have also met representatives from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission in order to provide them with reassurances on everything the Government is doing and to help explain exactly the different supports that are provided. I have also met children and families who, unfortunately, are in emergency accommodation and have been moving from hotels into hubs. Last week, the Taoiseach and I visited a family hub where we met a few families. I met two fantastic children from different families. I will not name them in order to protect their privacy. They were bright - and not just intelligent in terms of the various questions they were asking us about who we were and why we were there - lively and energetic as children should be. They were excited about Santa coming very shortly, as are, no doubt, the children in the Gallery. We gave loads of assurances that Santa was going to come, that he knew where they were and that he did get their letters.

While it will never be normal for families in homelessness, we must ensure that the children who are there do not feel it is anything but normal for the brief period - we hope it will be brief - they are in emergency accommodation and in hubs. We want them to feel that there is nothing wrong until we get them into secure homes. This is exactly what the care workers in those facilities are doing, and they are doing a fantastic job.

This morning, the early learning initiative held a number of open sessions. I was not able to attend because I was at a regeneration project with the Minister for Finance, which is another fantastic story for the inner city and for families on which I will comment shortly. The early learning initiative is doing fantastic work. One of the first things I learned in my first weekend on the job is the difficulty experienced in some of the cases now. In the past, children might have been having developmental issues with language skills, but now it is motor skills because there is not enough room for them to crawl around in the hotel rooms in which they are living. This is exactly why we have the hub programme and why we put so many of our resources into it.

I have also met workers who have told me that, unfortunately, they have identified some children they feel might now be at risk of adult homelessness because they have spent way too long in emergency accommodation. This is also why we have the hub programme. We have seen that people stay far fewer few months in emergency accommodation when they are in a hub because there are supports in place, and that is welcome.

The end of 2017 is approaching and we are reflecting on some of the policies we introduced during the year in order to see whether they have worked. This is important that both the Government and the Oireachtas do this. One of the key responses we have put in place this year is the family hubs. There was not acceptance initially of the hubs. However, when Members of the Oireachtas and members of the public visited some of the facilities, they came to understand that they are far superior to hotels. The hubs are only a first response - and an emergency one at that. As one family told the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Katherine Zappone, when she visited a hub, they did not feel homeless there. However, hubs are only emergency accommodation and a first response. Families are spending less time in them than they are in hotels, which is welcome. Hubs have a facility for independent living. Some of the rooms in certain hubs have independent cooking facilities. They also have community living and the communities decide how the hub will operate. There are shared facilities for cooking, play spaces and homework clubs. Support is there for parents in terms of babysitting and everything else that they will need and with trying to find accommodation and all of the other difficulties they are experiencing. Supports are also in place in respect of children, such as free child care, transport to and from school through the provision of Leap cards and breakfast and homework clubs.

In 2016, Tusla developed a protocol with the housing authorities to ensure that the appropriate child protection and welfare systems were in place for children and families in emergency accommodation. This was reviewed again at the end of 2016. We continue to look at the Dublin Region Homeless Executive to ensure all of the necessary supports are there for families in care. Hotels are not appropriate but, as a result of the crisis we faced, we had to use them in order to accommodate families. It was not necessarily a choice we would like to have made, but it was an appropriate one at the time. I have assured the Ombudsman that every care is taken for a family when it enters a hotel. In November, I outlined to the Dáil the wraparound supports for families as they go into hotels to try to get them out of there as quickly as possible and into a hub, a housing assistance payment, HAP, tenancy or social housing.

More than 600 families are still in hotels. That is still to many but it is down from the high point in March. There has been a 22% reduction from that high point, which is welcome. We will reach a stage - I hope to get there in the course of next year - when no family presenting will be accommodated in a hotel and will instead go directly to a family hub, a social housing unit or a HAP supported tenancy. At present, 12 hubs - accommodating 300 families - are in operation. They are located in Dublin, Kildare and Limerick. Seven new hubs will be in place by the end of the year and will accommodate an additional 163 families. These will be located in Dublin and Limerick. We will open more hubs in Dublin, Cork and Galway next year. This will be safe, supported accommodation until we can get them into homes or HAP-supported tenancies.

As already stated, hubs are only a first emergency response. Obviously, a key policy response and solution is to build more homes and put in place more social housing supports. In 2017, we committed 21,000 social housing supports from a mix of solutions I mentioned earlier. We will exceed this in a number of areas, which is welcome. HAP is working and almost 350 new tenancies are being supported into HAP accommodation each week. We have a voids acquisition and build programme that is part of bringing secure tenancies into our social housing stock. We will increase our financing for this by almost 50% next year. Earlier this week, I visited a new social housing project in Lusk. It is the largest of its type in Dublin. Already, eight houses are tenanted and early next year the remaining 70 homes in the scheme will have tenants in them. That is welcome. I also opened the programme for the new Donabate distributor road, which is part of the lighthouse scheme. We will use a small bit of taxpayer money to open up large schemes on private and public land for development. This will facilitate 1,200 new homes by 2021.

Very recently, I agreed in the Estimates with the Minister for Finance an additional €100 million for 2017 to go into the hubs programme to support families and children in emergency accommodation. It is also going to regeneration projects, such as St. Mary's in Dublin 1, where I was earlier this morning. It is also going into acquiring more homes for our social housing stock this year for families who need help and this is welcome.

Next year will begin with another housing summit. We had one in September, which was successful. In January, we will have a second housing summit to discuss the targets for local authorities for next year and how they, together with the voluntary sector, will meet their obligations to ensure that more houses will be build next year. As a result of some of the changes we made in policy this year, there will be an almost 30% increase in the number of social housing units built by local authorities and housing bodies next year. In the course of 2018, almost 8,000 homes will be brought into secure social housing tenancies through build, acquisition, long-term lease, Part V and bringing voids back into use. This is very welcome. Another 16,000 or more supports will be delivered in other areas. Every day of the working week, almost 100 new tenancies - that is, 100 new households - are supported through social housing supports and taxpayer-funded schemes. This is very welcome and will continue in 2018.

As we build more homes, we have to ensure that we focus on affordability. We discussed this matter recently in the Dáil. There will be an affordability scheme. It will not just be about social housing units and private homes, there will also be affordable homes. As we look to all of the indicators we have in the building sector - from the percentage of construction activity that is residential all the way through to the number of ESB connections - all of them are up for this year, which is welcome. Until we have more social housing homes built we will, of course, continue to rely on the private rental sector. Importantly, as we look to 2020 and 2021, we will be relying more on build, acquisition, long-term leasing and void vacancy than we will on HAP-placed tenancies for our social housing supports.

When a family is in crisis or very difficult circumstances, we must also ensure that emergency supports are in place to help. There were 3,000 exits in 2017. We will have that again, but prevention is key. We had more than 600 families and individuals being prevented from falling into emergency accommodation in the course of 2017. We have seen the housing assistance payment as a preventative measure and we have used the additional flexibility we have to prevent families from falling into emergency accommodation. As a result of the housing summit in September, we extended the place finder service nationally. It is there to help people into HAP-supported tenancies. It can also provide the deposit and the first month's rent. This is working.

The targets for 2016 with the new homeless HAP, which was a pilot of 50% discretion was 550, but we helped 800 households with homeless HAP in the course of 2016. In 2017, our target for homeless HAP support as a prevention measure was 1,200. We will achieve somewhere in the region of 1,600 tenancies supported through homeless HAP that otherwise would have gone into emergency accommodation and homelessness but did not because we were able to put this measure in place.

The Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, has given us a definition of substantial refurbishment, so that landlords and tenants can be clear on their rights and people are not abused in terms of being forced either to increase their rent or into eviction as a result of this piece of law. There are a couple of cases in the courts with regard to evictions that will show the extent to whether the legislation is robust enough. We also have a new obligation on landlords to notify the RTB when they serve a notice of termination so we can get those wraparound supports in as quickly as possible. We have seen that early intervention helps and is preventing families and individuals having to access emergency accommodation.

I met the CEOs from the voluntary sector yesterday. They came to me with new ideas on prevention and they are very much worth considering if we can better integrate and co-ordinate the prevention responses across the voluntary sector, together with the Dublin Region Homeless Executive. There are also things we can do to try to incentivise landlords where property is being sold so that it can be sold, as it is in the commercial sector, with tenants in situ.

Therefore, where tenants are meeting their obligations or the State is helping them with housing assistance payments, HAP, there will be no changes in their circumstances just because the ownership of the property has changed. We will explore that to see if we can help in that regard.

We have a crisis with rough sleepers. They are the most vulnerable people that we face in this housing and homelessness crisis. I committed to 200 additional beds and they will be in the system. The final bed will open on Monday next week so that no person who is sleeping rough will be forced to sleep rough over the course of the winter period, not just over the course of Christmas, as these are permanent new beds for the system. We have the cold weather initiative, which means there are more outreach teams out now every day to try to get people into the system.

I thank everyone working in this area, in local authorities, the voluntary sector and my own Department, who are working on the front lines. It is a serious challenge. We know that new homes are the answer and that new homes are being built but we will not be able to solve the crisis until they are built. That will take more time. Until those houses are built, we will treat every family and child with the utmost of care until we can get them into new homes - forever homes, as people call them. That is our ambition and what the Government is working to achieve.

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