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

Babies in hotels not reaching developmental goals was one of the first things brought to my attention upon being appointed to this office, to make sure that we could find a policy solution that would ensure adequate play spaces, cooking facilities and wraparound supports that families need were in place when they experience this crisis in their lives. That is what the family hub, initiated by my predecessor, Deputy Simon Coveney, is. Over the course of the second half of last year, we rapidly increased the number of available family hub places to help families into hub spaces or as families present for emergency accommodation, to put them directly into hub spaces in the family hubs that we have. At the second housing summit in January, I asked local authority chief executives to develop, with my Department, a rapid hub delivery programme because we need far more hubs than are currently in the pipeline. We have 500 family hub spaces at the moment. We hope to see the rapid family hub programme bring in at least an additional 400 spaces in a short period over the coming months.

On the statistics the Deputy was asking about, in so far as the 700 families in hotels in Dublin at the end of January are concerned, I said that 45% were there for six months or less. Some 22% have been there for more than six months but less than a year. Some 15% have been there for between 12 and 18 months and 6% of families currently in hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation have been there for more than 24 months. That 6% represents 29 families. On the point of the length of stay that some families are experiencing in hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation, we have to be very sensitive to individual families' needs. Some families need a tailored approach depending on the size of the family. There are not necessarily hub spaces currently available for larger families. Some other families will have very particular needs. As we work with our partner organisations to get families into more appropriate accommodation, we are sensitive to those needs and sometimes it takes longer to support those families to get appropriate accommodation.

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