Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Brú Aimsir is an emergency hostel in the city of Dublin with 101 beds. It opened in October of last year on a temporary basis and is run by Crosscare, the homeless service provider. It provides emergency accommodation on a night-by-night basis and works to place people in more secure emergency accommodation and in permanent housing.

Brú Aimsir has proved incredibly successful, and since it opened, more than 200 people have been successfully moved on to better quality and better supported emergency accommodation, and in a number of cases to permanent housing. The lease between Dublin City Council and the Digital Hub was temporary and the hostel was due to close in April of this year. It is important to emphasise that this is a publicly owned premises, ultimately under the auspices of the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. I understand that the Digital Hub would like to sell this premises as there is no immediate alternative use for it.

Unfortunately, since Brú Aimsir opened, the homeless crisis throughout the State and here in Dublin city has worsened. The Dublin Region Homeless Executive did a rough sleeper count on 24 April and on that particular night found 102 people sleeping rough in the city, a 10% increase on the previous count. On the same night, an additional 70 people were in the Merchant's Quay night café and all emergency beds in the city that night were occupied, including those in Brú Aimsir. Since the end of April, Brú Aimsir is being wound down. It was first restricted to 80 beds, and since 9 May, the freefone service which places people in Brú Aimsir has been instructed not to make any more placements. This means Brú Aimsir is essentially reduced to 43 beds a night.

At the same time, the average number of people turned away from emergency accommodation by the central placement service on any given night is between 50 and 60 people. These are people who ring up in search of day-to-day or night-to-night emergency accommodation, but they are told there is no accommodation for them. I have spoken to a number of people who work in the homeless sector in the city today and they tell us there has been an increase in the number of people sleeping rough as a direct result of the reduction in the number of beds in Brú Aimsir. Even if Brú Aimsir were operating at full capacity, the city would need more emergency beds.

Does the Minister believe it is acceptable for Brú Aimsir to close if the result is more people being forced to sleep rough in the city? Has the Minister raised this matter directly with his counterpart, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Denis Naughten, who has responsibility for the facility in terms of the ownership of the premises? Has he raised it with Dublin City Council, with the Dublin Region Homeless Executive or with Brú Aimsir itself? If the Minister has not done any of this, he needs to pick up the phone to the Minister, Deputy Naughten, and seek his direct intervention with the board of the Digital Hub to ensure this facility is not closed, as is currently planned, at the end of this month.

I also respectfully suggest that the Minister should talk directly to the city manager, Owen Keegan. Not only is he the city manager, he is also on the board of the Digital Hub and has a key role to play in this regard. There is a simple message all of the players on this issue need to hear, which is that the 100 beds that will effectively be removed from the Dublin emergency accommodation system if Brú Aimsir is closed should not be lost to the system. We need more, not fewer, beds. Nobody should be sleeping rough in Dublin when tonight there are 60 vacant beds in Brú Aimsir.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will receive a copy of the official response, but I will begin by answering some of his questions directly. I have been speaking to a number of people who are sleeping rough in Dublin who are looking for hostel accommodation and Brú Aimsir is a popular choice. It is seen as safe and as of one of the higher standard hostels available for people looking for sheltered accommodation who otherwise would be forced to sleep rough.

I do not have direct responsibility for the allocation of beds in Dublin.

The Deputy knows how that system works and does not need me to tell him. I have a policy responsibility and I have spoken to Dublin City Council and to Owen Keegan about this issue, as has my Secretary General in the past couple of days. The chief executive of Dublin City Council has written to the board, or the management, of the Digital Hub agency to see whether we can extend the availability of Brú Aimsir as a facility for sheltered accommodation. It is important, however, to understand what had happened and how Brú Aimsir came into the system. It was a winter response to rough sleeping and, because it was so successful, it became a very popular choice. There have been attempts to wind down facilities, as would be normal after a winter period, and to move people out of sheltered accommodation after the winter months. The latest count of the numbers rough sleeping was 102, a much reduced figure on last year but still a very significant figure. Given those numbers, and the fact that there is another hostel being taken out of operation, a Focus Ireland hostel which is being forced out of operation for other reasons, my judgment is that if we were to take Brú Aimsir out of hostel accommodation it would result in people being forced to sleep on the streets who otherwise would not be there. I have asked the chief executive of Dublin City Council to try to ensure it can stay open. My understanding is that he has written to seek an extension of the lease for 12 months as well as to seek to make it operate at full capacity, which is 100 people as opposed to the 40 it has been facilitating in recent weeks during the attempt to wind it down.

The Deputy is not the person who has raised this matter with me. Most important, the clients of Brú Aimsir have raised it directly with me. We had a regrettable incident last week, which I hope will not happen again or in other hostels that are part of an agreed wind-down. There were protests and staff were intimidated by protestors and that is not what we want. It has not contributed to this decision and in some ways it has made it more difficult.

I cannot confirm Brú Aimsir will be available for another 12 months yet but I can confirm that the request has gone in. I will speak to the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Denis Naughten, about it to ensure we do what we can to extend the facility for 12 months. In that period of time there will be a very significant effort from me and from Government to make a big impact on rough sleeping in Dublin. It is not acceptable that we have the numbers we have forced to sleep on the street. There are very complex reasons for people finding themselves on the street, such as addiction, mental health, family breakdown and other things and it is not simply a lack of availability of housing. I am determined to make a positive impact in this area. While we do that, keeping this hostel open will make a positive contribution towards the emergency response that is needed. Hopefully we will be successful in securing the extension of the lease.