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

I thank the Deputy. As I have often said before in this House, homelessness is a stain on our society. As a Government, we are honour-bound and duty-bound to do everything we can to reduce the number of people who are required to stay in State-provided emergency accommodation over the next months and years. We had a period when we were able to bring it down by 30% to 40%, but it has gone back up again. We are going to take the action that is necessary - it has to be action that is effective - to bring those numbers down again.

As the Deputy has pointed out in her remarks, the temporary winter eviction ban has ended. For five out of the six months in which it was in place, the number of people in emergency accommodation rose. Unfortunately, it did not bring down homelessness, which continued to increase while the eviction ban was in place. That points to the fact that there are many other factors at play when it comes to homelessness and the number of people who are in emergency accommodation. These factors include family breakdown, which is one of the biggest causes of homelessness, and of course the spill-over effects from migration.

We have seen a further fall in the number of people sleeping rough on our streets. That, at least, is a positive thing. There are fewer than 100 people sleeping on the streets of Ireland at night. When this figure is studied, it is found that one third or 40% of those had accommodation but did not take it up for various reasons. Such reasons can be complex.

On solutions, I say to the Deputy that we are not as far apart as she may think or may wish to think. Many of the things she proposes, with the exception of the temporary eviction ban, are things we are doing. We are investing in social housing. More social housing was built in this State last year than in any year since 1975 and we will build even more this year. It is probable that one in three homes built and provided in Ireland is in some way provided by the State or its agents. That is not a small proportion. Approximately one third of the 30,000 new homes are being built in some way with the help of the State through local authorities, approved housing bodies, leasing, the Land Development Agency, LDA, and all of the different mechanisms we use.

We are also tooling up and ramping up the tenant in situscheme. When a landlord is selling on, as they sometimes need to do for various reasons, the local authority can come in and buy the house. Approximately 1,000 of these purchases are being transacted at the moment, which is significant. We have said to the local authorities that the resources are there and they are willing to put in more funding if needed. We are tooling up the LDA to expand its affordable housing and cost-rental programmes to help those who do not qualify for social housing but still cannot afford to buy or rent a home of their own.

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