Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The sad deaths of two men in less than 24 hours underline the scale of the challenge we face in housing. With their passing and their loss to their friends of families, it is not a time, obviously, for political point scoring. I express my condolences to those who have felt their loss.

It is, however, another call to action to get to grips with the housing crisis. Their passing represents a moral challenge to this House and to the Government. The stakes in this housing crisis could not be higher. It is an immense ethical and economic task. That challenge demands clear concerted action. A Housing First approach is the best mechanism to resolve long-term homelessness. Wraparound services that recognise and deal with the complex needs of people affected by homelessness is the only viable long-term solution. The Government must get bricks and mortar on the ground to deliver the houses that are badly needed to support such an approach.

A number of steps can be taken in the short term to alleviate the crisis that is scouring our cities and towns. Housing charities engaged on the streets in helping those affected have proposed a series of ideas to avoid the tragedies we have seen in the past few days. The Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, should get moving on addressing those ideas, such as out-of-hours response in local authorities, dedicated contact and a formal count of rough sleepers.

Ultimately we need to redouble our efforts to ensure the targets in Rebuilding Ireland are achieved. The repercussions of a lack of supply are felt most severely by those least able to bear it. The sad events of recent days must serve to underline how addressing supply is the key objective. The Government will ultimately be judged on that. I hope the Minister of State can set out what immediate steps he is taking on these issues.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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A number of weekends ago, the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, speaking on "The Week in Politics" said that the homelessness crisis would get worse before it got better. I do not think even he realised how prophetic his words would be. As Deputy Cowen said, we have had two more deaths of people forced to sleep rough as a result of homelessness. That is seven deaths in a matter of weeks. I also offer my deepest condolences to the families and friends of those who tragically - and unnecessarily in my view - lost their lives.

This comes in the context of a significant increase in the number of rough sleepers - 184 according to the last count. As 50 people availed of the night café on that same night, obviously the number is significantly higher. We also have the highest recorded number of people in emergency accommodation at 8,000, including 3,000 children. As we know, many of those children spend several years in emergency accommodation before getting a permanent home. This does not include adults and children in domestic violence refuges and step-down accommodation. It does not include people given leave to remain who are trapped in direct provision and using direct provision as emergency accommodation or that even wider category of people who have no home of their own, but are sofa-surfing and in imminent risk of homelessness.

As I have said a number of times previously, nobody chooses to sleep rough. People sleep rough because of the absence of emergency accommodation or appropriate, safe and secure accommodation. I understand that the 58-year-old man who tragically died in the Minister's constituency was on a priority list for the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive for Housing First tenancy. The problem was that the executive did not have any properties to offer him. At the same time 1,800 turnkey projects have been offered to the Government for purchase in the last 12 months. Less than 600 are being pursued and even fewer have been purchased or tenanted.

I fully agree with Deputy Cowen that this is not a matter of party politics. However, I appeal to the Minister to review that list of 1,800 turnkey projects and ensure that as many of them as possible are purchased by the State as soon as possible to ensure that the people in emergency housing need or who are being forced to sleep rough are given the opportunity to have a safe and secure home in which to live. I ask the Minister to come back to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government with that full list of 1,800 properties that the housing agency and others have and tell us what is happening with them - what properties will be bought and when they will be tenanted - so that no more people end up dying on our streets as a result of rough sleeping and the homelessness crisis.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I join my colleagues in expressing sorrow, sympathy and support for families and friends of the two individuals who died in recent days. For those of us from the constituencies where the deaths happened, it brings the crisis home. I know very well the streets in Ranelagh where that poor man died. It is deeply shocking. There is a sense of loss and tragedy when that occurs. The crisis is right among us in all our communities and is real.

We need to work collaboratively to address this issue. A range of measures are needed. The need for a Housing First response is clear. Unfortunately there have always been cases of rough sleeping. There is now a clear connection between what is happening in our wider housing and homelessness crisis and this, the worst edge of it. We have to connect and tackle it in a co-ordinated way.

All the parties in this House need to identify how we can support the agencies looking to provide housing for people through social welfare and a range of different supported housing needs. People in that sector are increasingly running into difficulty in getting planning permission. We need certainty for those agencies. We need to assist those agencies in the provision of housing, by ensuring the planning process is not a restriction. We need to stand up to the concern that some neighbourhoods have over having a particular type of housing in their midst.

We need to support radical changes in provision. We need to cater for people who are homeless and also to cater for specific categories of people who are in need of supported accommodation. Our party will certainly help through our councillors at local level in identifying sites and ensuring planning permission is as smooth as possible. Local communities need to be brought in behind the sorts of solutions we need, avoiding unnecessary delay in the provision we need to make.

A point that has been repeated ad nauseambut bears repeating is that these terrible tragic incidents highlight that the Government, the Department and local authorities need to step up a gear and adopt a completely different attitude and approach. A person I met recently on the streets of Dublin cited the example that in Britain after the Second World War Chamberlain was instructed by Churchill in the then post-war government to build 3 million houses, and they were built within a certain number of years. That is the level of political commitment that we need.

The Minister of State has the support of all House to do this. His Department officials have to step up to that plate. The urgency and scale of the response required cannot be underestimated.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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First, I wish to pass on my deepest sympathies to the families and friends of the two people who died on the streets, but these deaths, the seven in total who have died in recent weeks, and the 30 or 40 that the Taoiseach said who die every year bring shame on politics, the Government and our society. They are not acceptable but they are not necessary. That is the key point.

We have talked about the vacant homes that exist in this State and gone on to debate the issue and questioned whether there are 180,000 such homes, as indicated by the Central Statistics Office, or a percentage of that figure but, nevertheless, there are thousands of them. The Peter McVerry Trust issued an email this week following the two deaths stating that it estimates that 250 to 300 Housing First solutions would solve the worst aspects of the crisis on the streets, the rough sleeping. There are certainly that number of vacant units and many more, but we must have the determination and will to get hold of them and to make them available to people who are sleeping on the streets. That is what needs to be done. We need to go way beyond that. Unlike the comments we heard from Eileen Gleeson, all of the people who are sleeping on the streets are there because of the failure to provide affordable public housing but many of them do not take up the emergency accommodation because they are terrified.

I got a text yesterday when I was sitting in the Dáil from a man who has been homeless for three years. He is in one of the emergency accommodations in Dublin 8 and he said he is terrified living there. I know some of the emergency accommodation is okay but the Peter McVerry Trust and all the other agencies tell us that, in many cases, it is terrifying to go to those facilities. People are not willing to go to them and then they end up on the streets.

I will not go through all the requests the Peter McVerry Trust has made: the Minister of State will also have received this email. It sets out a series of simple requests which should be met. We need to deal with the vacant homes issue, to get hold of the vacant homes necessary for those Housing First places and then move on to build the council houses that can solve the deeper problem.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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This week we tragically heard of the deaths of two individuals on our streets. We all agree this is not acceptable and should never happen. It is certainly something that we want to avoid. All Deputies agree that it should be avoidable and that it should not happen. It is as simple as that.

I join the Taoiseach, the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, and many others in this House in extending my sympathies and condolences to the families of those who died.

The Minister, Deputy Murphy, regrets he cannot be here and had hoped this issue could have been discussed yesterday, but the Deputies will be aware that he has spoken on this issue on a number of occasions in recent days and I know he was being kept informed on this matter all Tuesday evening by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive and officials at his Department. He wanted to be here tonight to be part of this discussion but he just could not make it.

Clearly, this is a very difficult time for those involved and for their families. Out of consideration for the families involved, I ask that we respect their privacy and not speculate on the circumstances of the deceased or the causes of death at this time.

While it is not appropriate to speculate on the circumstances of an individual case, it is appropriate that the House discuss the issue of homelessness and what we are doing to address and support those who are sleeping rough at this time.

As Deputies will be aware, an official count of those sleeping rough in the Dublin region took place on the night of 7 November 2017. A total of 184 individuals were recorded as sleeping rough on that night, which matches the feedback we get from the different agencies. We knew the numbers were 150 to 160 upwards from the reports we had been getting most nights.

As the Minister, Deputy Murphy, has said on a number of occasions, no person should have to sleep on our streets or be without shelter at any time of the year. At the housing summit last September, the Minister, Deputy Murphy, emphasised the need for all housing authorities to have sufficient capacity in emergency accommodation and to have appropriate facilities in place for every person sleeping rough on any night of the week and he instructed the Dublin Region Homeless Executive to ensure the delivery of 200 additional permanent emergency beds by Christmas, building on the new beds that were opened this time last year and since then during this year. The purpose of this was to ensure there will be a bed and all the necessary supports available for anyone who needs them this year.

Fifty of the 200 permanent beds are now in place and the remaining 150 emergency beds will be brought into use in the coming days and weeks and they will all be in place by mid-December. These supports are being put in place with our partner organisations. For example, the new facility which the Minister, Deputy Murphy, visited last week on the Cabra Road is being publicly funded, including through my Department and the local authority, and operated by our partners, the Peter McVerry Trust. The people who use this facility will have access to a range of health and welfare supports as well as food and sanitary facilities which they would not have on the streets. Facilities like this will provide some stability so that the housing authorities and the HSE can work with the individuals involved to create a pathway for them to exist homelessness into independent living.

As the weather becomes colder, my Department has been working with local authorities to ensure that their cold weather initiatives are in place. These arrangements ensure that additional temporary shelter can be brought into use across a range of existing services and facilities for singles and couples who need them during the cold weather. Arrangements are now in place across urban local authorities and additional temporary beds are in the system for those who need them. Anyone who is following this issue understands that when the weather drops to a certain level more people seek to engage and use the existing services.

Our first priority when dealing with homelessness must be to look after those who are most vulnerable - the more than 180 people who are sleeping rough on the streets at night - to get them into safe shelter and then on to one of the many pathways of more secure and sustainable supports, which all the Deputies have raised in regard to the Housing First option.

Exits from rough sleeping into Housing First tenancies are also critical and will continue in parallel with this work. The homeless executive will also implement its targeted programme to reach out to all those sleeping rough and to provide them with the interventions and support they need. Housing First is the best solution, but there are people who need beds immediately, and we are providing those on a permanent basis with the 200 new beds that will be in place by mid-December as well as the temporary beds. I acknowledge that in many cases this is emergency accommodation, which is not ideal for anybody. Certainly the standards are a little higher in the new facilities we have opened and they are a little more user friendly. We must also work on raising the standard of the older facilities. Again, they are only emergency accommodation and were only meant to be temporary. Our efforts have to concentrate on the more permanent solutions and brining forward housing supply. Deputy Cowen mentioned housing supply. He was right in that the issue is one of supply and bringing onstream new and other houses. Deputy Ó Broin mentioned the issue of vacant properties and we are trying to bring them back into use.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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We should deliver the 250 to 300 Housing First places that the Peter McVerry Trust has asked for. The houses exist and should be identified and made available. Critically, the supports should also be made available. I have a personal friend who I have known since I was 12 years of age who is now homeless again. We had got him onto the Housing First system. He got himself clear of his addiction for about a year running up to that, but the supports were not in place for him. He was put into a place where there was no furniture, no beds, nothing and there was nobody around to support him. He cracked up again and now he is back on the streets. That is what happens if the supports are not provided. This issue is not just about numbers or how many emergency beds we have, it must be about the real supports and working with these human beings to provide them with accommodation that is sustainable.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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We all have similar friends. When we bring the issue down to the personal level it shows that this counts. I have one specific question for the Minister of State. Why is it only in mid-December that those additional 200 units come into place? Given that we know the scale of the numbers has risen and that the cold weather comes in mid-November, why do these additional units not kick in until mid-December, which is very late? The units are welcome, but they are being put in place too late. I understand that all the places were full this week. We did not have the capacity we needed.

The level and scale of this crisis has been clear for many years. Why do we say every year that we are getting there? We always seem to be saying that the facilities are opening next week or the week after. We ran into planning difficulties in the Liberties last year. Why do we not have these facilities in place from mid-October or the end of October? We know it is going to be cold from mid-November onwards. Why does it take so long to get these units in place?

Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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Like the previous speaker, I have questions about the fact that these facilities are not yet available, even though they were supposed to be made available after the summit. We look forward to them being made available as soon as is practically possible. We have been told that funding is not an issue. I would like to see that proven by virtue of the facilities being put in place. Houses should be purchased using the Housing First approach. I remind the House that this problem is not confined to Dublin. I understand the Minister of State will meet representatives of the Midlands Simon Community next week to discuss a funding shortage it is facing at its facilities in Tullamore and Athlone. I implore the Minister of State to meet the funding deficit that exists because it cannot be met from the locality. The Midlands Simon Community provides the only emergency services that are available in Athlone and Tullamore. It is imperative that they be supported. The Minister of State has said this is not an issue. He can prove that by meeting the shortfall that exists. I expect him to do so.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister of State's disappointing reply was exactly the same as the reply we would have got if the tragic events of recent days had not happened. It was promised under Rebuilding Ireland that there would be 300 new Housing First tenancies within a year, but just 180 of them have been delivered. The target of 300 was not close to enough, given that so many people are spending long periods of time in emergency accommodation. My question is exactly the same as it was. Approximately 1,800 turnkey units that are ready to go have been offered to the Government in the past year. Why are just 600 such units being purchased? Will the Minister of State commit to a review of the entire list? Will he come before the housing committee as a matter of urgency to discuss how many more of those units can be bought and how quickly they can be bought? Although I welcome additional emergency accommodation that is safe and of a good quality, I emphasise that people desperately need homes, rather than emergency accommodation, to be provided as a matter of urgency.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I was about to answer Deputy Ó Broin's specific question when I ran out of time. It was not the Ceann Comhairle's fault; it was probably my fault for speaking slowly for once. The Deputy has suggested that 1,800 homes have been offered to the State in various ways. I am not sure the figure is as high as that, but it is certainly more than 1,000. Like the Deputy, I am not happy with the progress that is being made in this regard. I sat down with the Housing Agency a few weeks ago to try to track the process and see what is causing the delays in completing these transactions. Money has been provided to bring these properties on board, recycle them back out to the local authorities and reinvest the money that accrues from that process in further property transactions. Additional resources will be provided for this activity if it is needed.

The system is not delivering these properties as quickly as it should. Even when the houses have been transferred over, there have been delays in getting tenants to occupy them. This is not acceptable. I have sat down with those involved to talk through the issues. I will be happy to appear before the committee again to go through the issues. There are many quick wins to be gained here. We want vacant properties, including those in the possession of the banks. I think the Deputy understands that not all such properties are suitable. When we go to find them, we learn that some of them are not vacant. They can be unsuitable for other reasons. There are other issues that we can fix through the Housing Agency. It is not good enough that delays are persisting. We will fix the processes. We will deal with them. I think there are approximately 900 properties in view. More than 600 of them have been taken over. I want to be able to purchase the rest. We will look for more because we have the resources to do so. I think we can do that.

Deputy Boyd Barrett has raised other vacant properties. In many cases, they are people's private properties. We do not own them all. We are trying to put a lot of schemes in place to make it attractive to hand them over to us. We will announce additional schemes to make it even more attractive. The Peter McVerry Trust has been engaged by some local authorities to find these properties. Other non-governmental organisations and approved housing bodies have also been asked to do this work. We are all trying to get these vacant properties. I emphasise that the Peter McVerry Trust is part of the solution. It is doing some great work.

On Housing First, I am very disappointed to hear about the case mentioned by Deputy Boyd Barrett. I would love to get the details of it. The whole idea of having the Housing First approach is that the supports are absolutely meant to be there. I would like to track that and see it because it is not good enough. I am very disappointed to hear about it. Perhaps the Deputy and I will have an opportunity to chat about it.

We are trying to drive on the Housing First approach because we all agree it is a major part of the solution. It has been mentioned that just 180 tenancies have been achieved this year. It is not enough. It is below our target. We are appointing a national director of the Housing First scheme to drive it on and make it work. It is the best solution for most people. We need a supply of housing, as Deputy Cowen has said. When we can get the supply of houses, the Housing First approach is ideal for people. We need to make sure the supports are there. I will discuss that with the Deputy on a future occasion. Deputy Ryan raised the same issue. We are dealing with it. I cannot recall the specific question he asked in this regard.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I asked why the additional units are not coming on stream until mid-December.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Some of the new beds being provided under the emergency provision were announced during the year. We put many extra beds in place in the early part of the year. We are committed to doing more. In October 2016 and again in September or October of this year, we sat down with all the people involved in this sector to try to work how many additional emergency beds were needed. We committed resources on the basis of their advice, their rough counts and their research. We knew by September or October what would be needed. Money was set aside. It has taken time. In some cases, it was difficult to get the necessary facilities accepted in local communities. Some politicians, including councillors and Deputies, opposed them as well. That makes it awkward. I welcome Deputy Ryan's support.

Deputy Cowen asked about the Simon Community facilities in Tullamore and Mullingar. I will be happy to engage on this matter when I visit the midlands tomorrow. It was discussed when I did an event with the Dublin Simon Community during the week. Funds are in place to keep the facilities in the midlands open well into the spring. Funding will not be the issue. Westmeath County Council is reviewing the provision of services. It has to ask us for the money. The money is there to supply these services. When all of that has been sorted out, funding will not be an issue. The issues at present relate to the service and the costs. We will tease through that. I assure the Deputy that when an application is made by Westmeath County Council and the evidence is presented, money will be made available.

Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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Does this cover Offaly?

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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It covers Westmeath and Offaly.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Is the Minister of State going to bring his chequebook with him tomorrow?

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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That will not be necessary. These facilities will remain open until February or March.

Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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Money is not an issue.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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It is not an issue.