John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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6. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the level of funding he has provided to housing authorities for the provision of emergency accommodation in 2024 and 2025, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24777/25]

John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I ask the Minister to outline the level of funding he has provided to housing authorities for the provision of emergency accommodation in 2024 and 2025. I understand that it may not be possible to present all of the data here in tabular form but I would appreciate it if I could get that information.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Connolly for raising the important issue of the funding provided to housing authorities for the provision of emergency accommodation in 2024 and 2025. Supporting individuals and families at risk of, or experiencing, homelessness is a priority for Government and me. Critical to this is increasing the supply of housing. The Government is committed to increasing supply with a record level of €6.8 billion in capital funding being made available for the delivery of housing in 2025. The capital provision is supplemented by a further €1.65 billion in current funding to address housing need. This will allow us to build on the more than 10,500 new social homes which were delivered in 2024, through build, acquisition and leasing, including 7,871 new-build homes. Including HAP and RAS, 20,292 social housing solutions were delivered throughout 2024.

The programme for Government commits to providing emergency accommodation to everyone who needs it. An allocation of €303 million has been made under budget 2025 to provide homelessness prevention services, emergency accommodation and other services for households experiencing homelessness. This funding will also support the provision of supports that households require to exit emergency accommodation to a tenancy, including tenancy sustainment services and housing first. In addition, capital funding of €25 million will support the delivery of high quality transitional and emergency accommodation for individuals experiencing homelessness.

The total funding provided by my Department to each of the homeless regions in 2024 was €384,999,954, and to date in 2025 €81,523,279 in funding has been provided. As requested, my Department will make this data available to the Deputy in tabular form.

John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for the response. I also thank him for noting that we need to develop solutions to make sure that we can reduce this bill as we go forward. It is a very necessary but, unfortunately, very high bill. The figure of €385 million is quite startling but it is very necessary. Of all the problems we have in housing, and many of them have been discussed this morning, the one that causes me most concern is the level of homelessness, particularly the number of homeless children in our society. Outside of Dublin, the west region has the highest number of homeless children. In the west region there are 28 families that have been in emergency accommodation for two years. There is no other region outside of Dublin that is comparable. The figures in every other region are in single digits but there are 28 families in the west region. That is very concerning. It is not simply the lack of shelter but the long-term impact for those children of homelessness. We are well used to hearing the well-worn phrase that it takes a village to rear a child but these children are not part of a community. They are in emergency accommodation which is short term and it may not be somewhere that they will be for a long time. It is crucial that we challenge this.

I have another query about the organisation of homeless services.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Connolly for raising this very important issue. He has raised this matter with me on numerous occasions and he campaigned on it. The issue of child homelessness in particular is very dear to the Deputy's heart and it is also extremely important to me that we address this issue. The prevention of people going into homelessness is absolutely critical and that is what we are working on. Obviously, there is the broader issue of increasing supply. That is the ultimate solution but in the meantime, until we get supply up to where we need it, we will continue to work to help prevent people from going into homelessness in the first place. We are working on the development of the national homeless prevention framework this year to ensure all possible measures are being taken across Government to prevent homelessness. A key prevention measure over the last few years has been the provision of funding to support local authorities to purchase more than 3,000 properties from landlords to convert to long-term social housing under the acquisition scheme. The tenant in situ acquisition scheme has been an important measure and significant funding has been provided this year for second hand acquisitions, with €325 million already made available. My Department continues to engage with local authorities on the operational details for second hand acquisitions.

John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister. It is important to note that emergency accommodation and homelessness services are organised on a regional basis. In the west region there are four local authorities, namely Galway City Council, Galway County Council, Mayo County Council and Roscommon County Council involved but Galway City Council is the lead authority. I am concerned that additional resources, both human and financial, have not been provided to Galway City Council to carry out that role. I am aware that staff within the housing section of the council feel that they require additional staff in the areas of emergency accommodation and homeless services, as well as an increase in sustainable tenancy officers. I ask the Minister to examine that. Given that Galway City Council is the regional lead in the west region for homelessness and emergency accommodation provision, the Minister might consider providing additional staff to cover that area.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I again thank the Deputy for raising the important issue of homelessness and especially child homelessness. I will continue to engage with him. I will meet the two Galway local authorities in the coming weeks. I will head to Galway to meet both the city and county councils. Homelessness is a national issue but it has regional variations in terms of both causation and how we address the particular issues. I am aware of the Deputy's data that shows that area is having particular challenges outside the Dublin region, so I want to engage with the local authorities. The staffing will remain under review, but we want to ensure the supports are being put in place to ensure we can prevent people going into homelessness in the first place and that where it happens people are transitioned back out of homelessness as quickly as possible.