Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is changing the definition of emergency accommodation. The families in Tallaght Cross are in emergency accommodation. They do not have a tenancy agreement and there are key workers, which the Minister's Department funds, to try to move them into permanent accommodation. The idea that because somebody is left languishing in emergency accommodation for two years the Minister is now saying that they are no longer in emergency accommodation is truly astounding.

All of this stands in marked contrast to the refusal of both the Minister and his predecessor to add into the homeless figures families and individuals who are in emergency accommodation but are not funded by the Minister's Department. There are two hostels in Dublin, for example, the Morning Star and the Regina Coeli, neither of which is funded by Government and both of which house people in hostel type accommodation. There are 66 people in the Morning Star Hostel and there are 40 rooms for women and children in Regina Coeli Hostel.

They are not counted in the Minister's figures. Adults and children in Tusla-funded domestic violence step-down and emergency accommodation are homeless but are not included in the Minister's figures. The 520 people, including 163 children, who, despite having leave to remain, are trapped into using direct provision as emergency accommodation because they are unable get adequate housing are not included in the Minister's figures.

When we highlighted all of this to the Minister previously, he would not change the figures because, God forbid, they would show an increase but now that the figures are going in the wrong direction, he is reclassifying the definition of "emergency accommodation" in a fundamental way. That is deeply dishonest and deeply insulting to these families. When the Minister finally publishes the data which I seem to have but which he, for some unknown reason, he does not, I think he will be forced into a climb-down.. A total of 80% of the families removed by the Minister from County Louth are homeless and should be included in those figures. If that trend goes across all of the 600, that is an astonishing number of families to have removed from these figures.

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