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

The vast majority of families who have been placed in family hubs spend less than six months in that family hub accommodation. We get in there as quickly as possible with our care supports to get them either into social housing or one of the social housing supports that we have. This is why we have expanded the placefinder service which is there to help families to source accommodation, whether they are in emergency accommodation or before going into emergency accommodation. With the placefinder service, they can give their first month's rent and the deposit. If the homeless housing assistance payment is being used, there can be extra discretion with regard to rent. We are seeing results from that. We note, as I put in the statement that I issued earlier, that the extent of the increase in families in emergency accommodation that we saw in January was not anticipated and I have asked the Dublin Region Homeless Executive to investigate the reasons for this, come back to me with a report and, following from that, to see what further responses might be necessary.

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