Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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The number of people seeking housing advice as a result of losing their homes increased by 43% in 2013. Each week, between three and five new cases of families in mortgage distress present at my office. This is in addition to families already being processed by my office. For most of the families involved, dealing with this issue is a disaster. They experience the stress of potentially losing their home and the financial challenge of trying to meet mortgage repayments, while trying to feed and clothe their families and cover the costs of school, visits to the doctor and so forth. Facing all of these issues is a perfect storm for many of these families.

Another group of people are in a worse position, however. In addition to mortgage distress, unemployment, negative equity and so forth, an increasing number of people seeking advice at my office are dealing with relationship breakdown. In other words, not only are they experiencing all of the crises faced by other families, but they are also facing family breakdown. In a significant proportion of the cases of mortgage distress my office deals with, the main reason is the breakdown of relationships. In many cases, the person who remains in the family home is unable to meet the mortgage repayment on the home. It is unfortunate that this problem is not discussed in the House or media because the numbers affected are growing.

If this were not bad enough, many families are facing homelessness as a result of their circumstances. Separated mothers or fathers and their children may be able to secure support from their local authority if they have experienced physical abuse from a partner and have been forced out of their homes. However, in many of the cases I deal with, families cannot live in the family home following a separation because the environment in the home has become extremely unhealthy for one of the partners and the children. While physical violence may not occur, such toxic conditions force people to leave their homes. Typically in such scenarios, families who apply for rent supplement or to be placed on the local authority housing list, all of which are extremely long, are informed that they do not have a housing need because they have a house or their name appears on a mortgage. These people are being left in limbo as they face the possibility of homelessness. While it is technically correct that they have a house, the toxic nature of their home environment means they do not have anywhere to live. In such circumstances, the mother and children must present to the local authority seeking emergency accommodation. Many of the people in question are accommodated in bed and breakfast accommodation, flats or must share a house with other people, none of which is suitable for families. The cost of temporary accommodation such as bed and breakfast solutions is shockingly high.

Families in these types of cases have no option but to become homeless because the current legal position and structure does not recognise their family circumstances. Sleeping rough is becoming more common on the streets of Dublin and other towns and cities and the number of people accessing emergency homeless services has increased by 40%. These issues are interrelated and I ask the Minister of State to think hard about a solution for families experiencing the circumstances I have outlined.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I thank Deputy Tóibín for raising this matter. While different personal, financial and social reasons can contribute to a person becoming homeless, for those involved the effects on their personal life are similarly traumatic and disabling. Societally, the ramifications of homelessness are also equally as destructive and costly. For this reason, I am strongly focused on achieving the Government's ambitious goal of ending long-term homelessness.

In February 2013, I published the Government's homelessness policy statement which set out the aim of ending long-term homelessness by the end of 2016. The statement emphasises a housing-led approach, which is about accessing permanent housing as the primary response to all forms of homelessness. The availability and supply of secure, affordable and adequate housing is essential in ensuring sustainable tenancies and ending long-term homelessness.

The homelessness oversight group, which I established in 2013 for the purposes of reviewing the progress of the approach being advocated in the statement, identifying obstacles and proposing solutions, has submitted its first report to me. The report considered the prevention of homelessness, the families presenting as homeless and housing supply. A copy of the report is available on my Department's website.

On 25 February 2014, the Government approved the establishment of a homelessness policy implementation team and an implementation unit. The team is tasked with implementing the oversight group's first report. This will include the preparation and publication of a structured, practical plan to make the transition from a shelter-led to a sustainable housing-led response to homelessness and achieve the 2016 goals for homelessness.

The implementation team is representative of the key State agencies dealing with homelessness, housing and related services because the solutions to homelessness do not solely reside in my Department.

The team is being led by my Department and includes a senior official from the Department of Social Protection and the Health Service Executive, as well as the managers of Dublin City Council and Monaghan County Council, representing local authorities. The team will report on this plan to the Cabinet committee on social policy later this month and quarterly thereafter.

I am acutely aware of the significant number of families now presenting as homeless in the Dublin region owing to economic difficulties, job loss, a decline in house supply and, as mentioned by Deputy Tóibín, relationship breakdown. More than half a billion euro in funding is being made available through my Department in 2014 across a range of housing programmes and I expect that in the region of 5,000 social housing units will be provided this year. I am committed to continuing to develop innovative and sustainable approaches to the provision of social housing. I want to see an increase in the supply of new social homes and to ensure that every available appropriate unit that exists is transformed into a home as quickly as is reasonably possible. Included in this is the transfer of NAMA units, in respect of which 596 were provided to the end of 2013.

On the specific issue raised by the Deputy, the Social Housing Assessment Regulations 2011 provide that a household with alternative accommodation that would meet its housing need is ineligible for social housing support, but the regulations clarify that paragraph (1) does not operate to exclude from eligibility for social housing support an applicant who owns accommodation that is occupied by his or her spouse, from whom he or she is formally separated or divorced. Under the enactment, a deed of separation is sufficient to set aside this ineligibility ground and it is not necessary to await judicial separation or divorce to get a decision on social housing support in these cases. I am aware that there are people who do not have a deed of separation. The legislation operates satisfactorily in most cases. However, I am currently considering in the context of the housing (miscellaneous provisions) Bill currently in preparation, whether legislative change is warranted to deal with exceptional cases that present difficulties under the current arrangements. I am examining whether it is possible to provide for greater flexibility in this regard.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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Many people in relationship breakdown do not have the funds to engage in the separation and divorce process. Many of the families involved are at their wits end. While some people may potentially have a legal claim to a property, owing to the difficulties they have left behind all they want to do is start afresh. I will give one example from the many cases with which I have been dealing. A young mother of three children who suffered abuse in her family home applied for social housing but was refused on the grounds of owning a home. Following many applications for rent allowance she was eventually approved, only to have it withdrawn, again for the reason that she owned a home, as a result of which she amassed huge rent arrears and was forced out of the house by her landlord around Christmas time. Following reapplication by her for rent allowance, and with a great deal of pressure from my office, the rent allowance was re-approved. She then engaged in a huge trawl of accommodation in the town but could find none within the rent cap for the area. As a result she had to uproot her family from their home and her children from their schools and move to another town. The house she secured is damp and as her youngest child has asthma he cannot reside with her in the house and has to live with his granny for most of the week. The landlord has stated that he did not want to rent out the house but was forced to do so by the local authority because it is under pressure to house people. The window of the house recently fell out. This woman is in serious difficulty and is trying to find alternative accommodation.

The current rent cap for County Meath is causing major difficulties. There is no separation of areas to reflect higher rents. The people about whom I am speaking are in serious difficulty. I listened to the response by the Minister of State and accept that she recognises the problem. However, much of her response related to objectives, teams, reports, plans and so on. There are families in fiercely distraught circumstances. Not having the confidence of a roof over their heads is one of the problems which this Government needs to address.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I do recognise that it is a real problem. I am examining whether something can be done to address it in the next piece of legislation relevant to this area. The problem is that for a person to get onto a local authority housing list he or she must establish that he or she has a long term housing need. In many of the cases involved, a person's name may, at the point of registering as having a long term housing need, be on the deeds of a house. We are examining what can be done in this regard, including whether they can be provided with short term accommodation, with their application being reviewed at a later time. I accept families are experiencing real problems in this area. We will try to address them as soon as we can.