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

I wish Deputy Gould good morning, as I was getting worried there. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle has given some latitude to allow his question, which is good. It is an important question.

There is no doubt but that the continued rise in numbers accessing emergency accommodation is of serious concern to me and to the Government.

I am working with the national homeless action committee to ensure we address the prevention of entries into homelessness and exits from homelessness as a matter of urgency. I chair that committee, and it is made up of the State stakeholders, as well as the NGOs. We are prioritising measures with a focus on accelerating social and affordable housing supply through a combination of new builds, targeted acquisitions and leasing.

Some €4.5 billion is being made available this year to support the largest State home-building programme ever, including 9,100 direct-build social homes and 5,500 affordable homes. I remind the Deputy that last year we built more new social homes than we have done since 1975. There will also be increased provision for social housing acquisitions for local authorities to acquire at least 1,500 social homes. This is the purchase of homes with tenants in situ. It is focused on properties where tenants are in receipt of social housing supports, as the Deputy will know. Every local authority is working hard on this initiative and initial feedback indicates that we will exceed that target of 1,500 quite substantially this year. There is no ceiling on this either.

For households ineligible for social housing, I have introduced the cost-rental tenant in situscheme, for which we have also had our first approvals. The targeted leasing initiative, which has been set up specifically to target those experiencing or at risk of homelessness, is set to deliver over 400 additional social homes this year. Policy is being developed to help tenants to buy their rented homes on the basis of landlords offering their tenants the first right of refusal. I expect to bring a memo to Cabinet next week on this proposal. These measures are all aimed at preventing households from becoming homeless or to help people exit from homelessness to reduce the number of adults and children in emergency accommodation.

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