Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are approaching Christmas time and the holiday season and people are looking forward to the Christmas holidays and spending time with their families, perhaps at home near the warmth of the fire. Of course, when one thinks about that, one's thoughts inevitably turn to those who are less fortunate, those who do not have a home to go to, those without shelter who are exposed to the cold. That is why the figures for rough sleepers produced yesterday were very disappointing. They show that 156 people were sleeping rough on the particular night.

It is not the highest ever, by any means. It was higher a year ago and, in fact, it was higher four years ago. It represents an increase on the previous count in September.

What do we want to do? We want to make sure people have access to emergency accommodation this Christmas. Now that beds are available for everyone who needs them, nobody has to sleep rough. That is why we have set aside €60 million in the budget for additional investment in emergency accommodation. The first step is to get people into emergency accommodation. After that, more permanent accommodation can be found for them. An extra 203 beds will be put in place between now and the end of the year. In fact, 51 of them are already in place. The provision of 203 additional permanent beds and 130 contingency beds will ensure there is emergency accommodation for everyone who needs it this winter.

We are continuing to work with the Peter McVerry Trust and other charities to advance the Housing First programme, which is all about getting secure tenancies for people who have been rough sleepers and are now in emergency accommodation. When they are in secure tenancies, they will be given all the additional supports they need to hang on to their homes. As the Deputy will be aware, rough sleeping is a complex social problem and is not just an issue of housing. As it often involves issues like addiction, mental health and physical health, it can sometimes be hard to get people to come in and therefore it can be hard to help them, even though we do our best to do so.

In terms of supply, I do not think it is a case of promises anymore. The figures on supply are very positive. According to the most recent set of numbers, 5,000 new houses and apartments were built in Ireland in the past three months. Between 18,000 and 20,000 new homes have been built in Ireland this year. Those are not just figures, as we can see by turning back to the theme of Christmas, which was raised by the Deputy. This Christmas, approximately 20,000 people and their families will sit around a Christmas tree in new homes that did not exist this time a year ago. It is possible that 60,000 or 70,000 people will spend this Christmas in a house or apartment that was not built this time last year. We are going to need to ramp that up more and more next year until we get to the kind of figure - 30,000 or 40,000 - that is indicative of the level of housing construction that will be needed every year if we are to get on top of this crisis.

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