Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not think it will come as a surprise to the Deputy to hear that there is an absolute acceptance in government that we have a crisis that needs a comprehensive response. It is getting it. We have seen massive increases in terms of the financial response from the Government through budgets. We have a very significant and comprehensive plan to deal over time with the homeless crisis. There is, unfortunately, an over-reliance in the short term on the private rental market to try to deal with the housing demands of many families who need the State's intervention and help, but we are responding dramatically in terms of our commitment, both financial and from a delivery perspective, to increasing the number of social houses available. If the Deputy looks at the numbers, last year nearly 26,000 people were provided with a social home by the State across the various mechanisms, or 36% higher than the target set at the start of last year.

I accept that we have far too many people, including children and families, who are homeless. What the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, is trying to do is create an accurate picture of numbers and situations of the people who are homeless in order that we can have appropriate responses. Dealing with homelessness is a huge priority for the Government, but nobody has claimed that it can be solved overnight. What we have done in the short term is invested huge amounts of money in improving the quality of emergency accommodation and the appropriateness of emergency accommodation which is a temporary solution, while we find longer terms solutions for many of the individuals and families in question. That is why we have invested so much money in hubs, providing extra emergency accommodation and better emergency accommodation.

I also listened to Mr. Brendan Kenny and know that he is deeply committed to trying to solve this problem with the Government. He is saying the figures are far too high, but they have plateaued. They are no longer increasing at anything like the pace we have seen in the past 18 months or so. Over time we will need to provide long-term housing solutions through a dramatic increase in the provision of social housing, to which we are committing billions of euro. In the next ten years we will deliver more than 100,000 new social houses. That is the Government's response and it is comprehensive, as Deputy Eoin Ó Broin knows. In the meantime, we have a continuing crisis, with families and children whom we need to ensure are in appropriate short-term emergency accommodation, while we increase the throughput in moving people from homelessness into sustainable tenancies.

On what Deputy Eoin Ó Broin describes as recategorisation, what we are talking about is how many people are exposed to the vulnerabilities and dangers of homelessness in the context of the provision of emergency accommodation. Many individuals and families are in homes and have certainty in terms of their accommodation into the future. Over time they will need to be housed in social housing, but they are not in the emergency accommodation many understand it to be.

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