Dáil debates

Tuesday, 6 October 2020

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions

Homelessness Strategy

8:10 pm

Photo of Darragh O'BrienDarragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will take the last question first. I agree with the Deputy. I have already met our delivery partners, the local authorities and the approved housing bodies. In any schemes that are brought to us, I want to see designs for community schemes that provide for a mix of units. I visited one such scheme yesterday with the Taoiseach in Balgriffin. More than half the units there are one-bedroom and two-bedroom units. There are also three-bedroom family apartments. We want a mix.. It is true that that is what we need. We are playing catch-up.

The call for housing was never going to be a panacea. It will bring in extra stock in the short term but we need to build more and we need to design for a community. I will come back to Deputy Ó Murchú's question in a minute. Deputy Paul Murphy is correct that there is a specific issue with single adults who are homeless. We need to focus our attention on that issue. The homeless task force, which meets every Monday and is chaired by me, is focused on what we need to do. The Deputy mentioned a number of the agencies and homeless charities. Two of the three are involved in the task force which I chair. There are a number of delivery partners and organisations that I am dealing with and listening to in terms of their experiences on the ground. We need to do that.

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