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

Deputy Ó Broin and every Member of this House knows that the reasons people enter homelessness are very complex. People enter homeless emergency accommodation for a variety of reasons. One of the main preventive measures the Government introduced that is working is the purchase of homes for tenants in situ. So too is the increased supply of social housing stock. People are spending less time in emergency accommodation and exiting emergency accommodation quicker than ever before.

I will give exact statistics with regard to homelessness across the country. Cork County is down 50%, Longford is down 44%, Monaghan is down 33%, Donegal is down 14%, Galway county is down 14%, Offaly is down 9%, Kilkenny is down 4%, and Galway city and Kildare are also down. There is an acute issue, particularly in Dublin, on which I will focus. I have met the Dublin local authorities myself. I meet them regularly on supporting them to exit people, particularly larger families, out of homelessness quicker. Our prevention and exit numbers are substantially up on last year's and that is because of the new supply under the largest State building programme in the history of the State.

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