Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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1. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the actions he intends to take in the coming months to halt the relentless rise in adult and child homelessness and to reduce the number of people presenting as homeless and accelerate the number of exits of persons currently in emergency accommodation. [54228/25]

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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As the Minister knows, homelessness is at the highest level since modern records began. Over 16,000 people, including 5,000 children are officially categorised as homeless and in emergency accommodation funded by the Department. Astonishingly, neither the Minister for Finance nor the Minister for public expenditure and reform even referenced homelessness yesterday. The budget book simply references an increase for emergency accommodation, hardly a sign of success. Will the Minister outline the actions he intends to take in the coming weeks and months to start to get a grip on this crisis so that we see the numbers of adults and in particular children in emergency accommodation fall?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy. Addressing homelessness and in particular homeless families and children is a priority for me, the Department and the Government. Ireland signed the Lisbon declaration in June 2021 which committed all signatories to work towards ending homelessness by 2030. I will continue to work with the National Homeless Action Committee to ensure an all-of-government approach to drive the ambition of the Lisbon declaration. Critical to supporting households to exit homelessness is our continued investment in the social housing programme. Budget 2026 has continued the record level of investment in social housing with €2.9 billion in capital allocated to support the delivery of social homes by local authorities. This continued investment in the social housing programme will increase the supply of stock available to allocate to households on social housing waiting lists, including households in emergency accommodation. It is important that local authorities ensure sufficient allocations are made to families in emergency accommodation. A key focus for me is to reduce the time families spend in emergency accommodation as well as prevention. In September I wrote to 21 local authorities with families in emergency accommodation for more than 12 months and asked them to use all housing schemes to exit these families from emergency accommodation. I ring-fenced an additional €50 million which I secured as part of the national development plan process to exit households who are the longest in homeless accommodation with a focus in the first instance on larger families with children and housing first clients. This funding is in addition to the €325 million already committed to the social housing second-hand acquisitions programme in 2025, bringing the second-hand acquisition programme in total to €375 million so far this year. Ensuring that families and children experiencing homelessness are provided with accommodation and supports is critical. Budget 2026 provides an allocation of €513.5 million to provide homeless emergency accommodation and supports. Capital funding of €50 million has been allocated to support the provision and maintenance of quality emergency and transitional accommodation. The new housing plan will be published shortly. It will include robust and targeted actions that will increase the provision of housing.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Yesterday, in response to the budget, Focus Ireland said: "Budget 2026 has failed to deliver for the record number of over 16,350 people now homeless as the Government did not take any decisive action on housing to help the most vulnerable in society." The Simon Communities of Ireland in a similar vein said: "It is deeply disappointing that yet again there was no mention of homeless prevention and homelessness remains invisible within the budget and also in the ever-present conversation around housing". We know last year fewer social homes were delivered than the year before. We know the budget allocation for local authorities for social housing for this year is over €200 million less than what was spent last year. We are not going to see an increase in supply to get people out of emergency accommodation. The budget increase for this year is not really an increase at all but simply reflects the high level of expenditure on emergency accommodation. That means as a consequence of the decisions the Government took in the budget announced yesterday, homelessness is going to increase and notices of termination continue to be issued at an accelerating rate. I want to know not what the Minister has done to date because that is failing but what is he going to do differently? What new initiative to prevent people from becoming homeless or get people out of emergency accommodation more quickly was announced in the budget yesterday?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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With our new housing plan, we are developing the homelessness prevention framework. Significant work has been ongoing in relation to that, working with all the NGOs. I acknowledge the good work by Focus Ireland and the Simon Communities of Ireland. When I became Minister for housing, the first thing I did was visit all of the homeless organisations at their sites to get the necessary information. They have been front and centre of everything I have been doing for the past eight months, including meeting on a regular basis through the National Homeless Action Committee, working together to ensure homelessness is reduced.

My focus is absolutely on reducing that homeless number. It will be done through a number of different measures, including delivering on social housing, but also for those who are entering into homelessness, preventions, exits out as quickly as possible and working with people in emergency accommodation. I have outlined some of what we are in the middle of doing. Our homeless prevention framework, worked out with our NGOs, will also be published very soon.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Simon Communities of Ireland went on to say yesterday, “The measures announced today will do nothing to reduce the numbers of people being forced to experience the trauma of homelessness.” What it is saying and what I want the Minister to respond to is, of the €235 million of additional funding for homeless services on the allocation to date of this year, how much will be spent on new homeless prevention or homeless exits or is that money simply a reflection of what the Government is actually going to spend this year? Is the Minister going to bring a further Supplementary Estimate, for example, on homelessness that will show spend this year closer to the allocation for next? What is new in yesterday’s budget? How much money and on what programmes will the Minister use that money to reduce homelessness in the time ahead? On the basis of what I am seeing and what the homeless sector is saying, there is nothing new or additional to prevent or end homelessness more rapidly in yesterday’s budget.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy rightly points out, there is significant additional funding for homelessness in yesterday’s budget. As the Deputy knows, budgets are always broad strokes. You are dealing with multiple Departments and within those Departments there are multiple areas. I will, through the Revised Estimates Volume, work out exactly how we will allocate this funding and how we will use it. In particular, the homeless prevention framework will be absolutely key to preventing people going into homelessness. We cannot address homelessness as a homogenous group. People are becoming homeless for different reasons. The most common and most frequent reason is notices to quit. That is why we are introducing the reforms in the rental sector to give renters security of tenure, which is critical to bringing us in line with the rest of Europe, but there are also other measures to increase delivery on social housing by as much as possible and as quickly as possible. As that will not end homelessness immediately, we will also have funding for those who are in homelessness, along with prevention and exit measures. This is a multifaceted approach to address homelessness.