Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will try to touch on some of the issues. I can address more through correspondence. In the past few minutes, Deputy O'Loughlin outlined best why it is so important that we focus on solutions. I said in my opening remarks, which not everybody present heard, that this subject touches everyone's heart. It is a matter we all want to address. It is important that the Houses respond and have debates like this to focus on what we are trying to do and what additional steps we can take.

The Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, could not be here today. He is out of the country. He sat down with me last night and we went through the issues concerning this debate. When I speak here today, I speak on behalf of him, my Department and our Government. He tries to be here as much as he possibly can. He has contributed to the past two debates on this matter. He is very much involved in driving the change we are trying to bring about. We are bringing together all the relevant Departments.

Deputy O'Loughlin was correct that there has to be a cross-departmental approach to tackling all forms of homelessness, especially child homelessness, and to providing all the various services. The authorities responsible for education, social protection, Tusla and so on are all involved in this. They are all around the table. That is what Rebuilding Ireland was about. It is to bring everyone together to focus in on this. They are all trying to make the necessary changes and do more.

It is absolutely the case that not enough is being done if there are still close to 4,000 children in emergency accommodation. We all recognise that. I started my opening statement by saying we know that not enough is being done here. It is untrue to say there is nothing being done, however. Not enough it is being done. Until everybody is out of homelessness and has a house, we cannot stop. There is no doubt about that but one can only fix this action by action and piece by piece, not by waving a magic wand or hoping it will go away.

It will not go away. We must focus every day and every week on what needs to be done across every Department. As Ministers, our job is to ensure that is being done, to track it, follow it, put the money behind it and to change policy if need be. Change will happen as we go along.

It is not true to say that nothing is being done or that the Government is blaming the local authorities. We are not. That is the media commentary; we did not say it. Earlier this week I complimented local authorities on their response and the turnaround in delivery. I want to be very clear on that. We have gone from only 75 houses being brought forward at the end of 2015 to more than 10,000 social houses being brought into the system this year. Approximately 6,400 houses are direct builds. We met with all the local authorities in the past two months to check all the figures, as we do on a weekly basis, to make sure they are on track. They are on track. I compliment the delivery of housing, which has completed turned around. It is not being held back by red tape or a lack of funding. No local authority CEO has ever asked me to change the €2 million in funding to €6 million, which Fianna Fáil keeps harping on about. That is not the issue. If it were, I would hear about it from them because they are the ones we ask to do it, and they are doing it. We asked them to do more and to put more of a pipeline in place in the future.

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