Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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146. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government his plans to do to address the month on month rises in homelessness. [18167/26]

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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On Friday, the Minister's Department published the latest homelessness figures. They show record highs of homelessness, with more than 17,000 people, including more than 5,000 children, homeless. Since Deputy Browne has been Minister, homelessness has increased by 12% and child homelessness has increased by a significant 16%. Will the Minister set out what additional actions he intends to take to reduce the flow of adults and children into homelessness and get people into emergency accommodation more quickly?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for his question in relation to my plans to address the month on month rise in homelessness. Addressing homelessness is a priority for my office, the Department and this Government. Our new housing plan is an integrated housing and homeless plan based on two key pillars: activating the supply of 300,000 more homes; and supporting people to have a home of their own.

Increased supply is key to addressing homelessness. The Government is focused on making sure everyone has access to a good quality and affordable, secure home that suits their needs in their local community. More than €9 billion in capital funding will be made available for housing in 2026. Our new plan recognises that homelessness is the single most pressing social issue we face and introduces a number of key measures to address homelessness. Ensuring the implementation of these measures will be a priority for me in 2026.

Meeting the Government commitment to eradicate homelessness requires a whole-of-government response. The national homeless action committee, NHAC, which I chair, supports the co-ordination of this response by Government, local authorities and their service delivery partners. The most recent meeting of NHAC took place yesterday, on Wednesday, 4 March. I will continue to work with the committee to ensure a renewed emphasis is brought to collaborating across Government to implement actions in the new housing plan.

Prevention of homelessness in the first instance is an absolute priority. There are many prevention initiatives already under way in my Department and across Government. This includes the provision of social and affordable housing, HAP, homeless HAP and our strong tenancy protection legislation in order to ensure a fully aligned all-of-government approach under the plan. The programme for Government includes a commitment to a holistic cross-departmental approach to homeless prevention. Work has commenced on developing a national homeless prevention framework to ensure all possible measures are being taken across Government to prevent homelessness. It is intended that this framework will be in place later this year.

Addressing family homelessness is absolute priority for me. Under the new housing plan, we will develop a dedicated child and family homeless action plan as well.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister's party and Fine Gael have effectively been in government together since 2016 and since then the total number of adults who have been forced into emergency accommodation because of their failed housing policies numbers 55,000. I ask the Minister to think about that for a moment. That is more than a capacity crowd at the Aviva Stadium. It is greater than the population of Longford or, indeed, of Drogheda. Rather than this being the Government's priority, the policies it is implementing are making this crisis worse. It is not delivering a sufficient volume of social and affordable homes. It slashed funding for vital homelessness prevention schemes last year, and this year it has reduced funding further and further restricted its use for tenant in situ. The Government has introduced a set of changes to rent setting in the private rental sector that is going to widen the gap between what people can afford and the market rents. Given that we have 20,000 or so eviction notices a year, more families and singles are going to end up homeless. I asked the Minister what new or additional measures he is going to take but he has not given any. For the second time, I invite him to tell us what he is going to do differently this year than last year to get a grip on this crisis he is making worse.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I have already outlined the several of the measures we are taking. Through our national homeless action committee along with homeless organisations, we are developing new strategies around child and family homelessness, and there are also our programmes around other homeless prevention. What the Deputy does not mention when he mentions the 55,000 figure is how many we have prevented going into homelessness or how many we have exited from homelessness. Since 2014 this country's population has increased by some 800,000 people. That is a challenge. We acknowledge there is a housing crisis in this country. What we are doing is trying to ensure people have the homes they need in their local community. There has been a challenge in driving the supply to meet the demand in this country over the past number of years. We saw a significant increase in homes being delivered last year, more than 36,000 homes and a 20% increase in housing delivery. We are stepping up even further in homeless prevention and exits and have significantly increased the amount of capital funding available to exit people longest on our homeless lists out of homelessness as well.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Yet the numbers of adults, children, families, singles and pensioners continues to rise almost every single month. By pushing up market rents, this is going to get worse. When we published our analysis based on RTB data of the cost of the market rent reset, the Minister rubbished it. He said it was not true. Yet, we already have evidence. A few days after the introduction of the new change, a tenant renting a one-bedroom apartment in Leopardstown moved out. The apartment was being rented for just over €2,000 until the middle of February. The property went back on the market on 1 March and the rent increased by 15%. That is almost an extra €4,000 in rent being charged, exactly in line with the RTB data and our analysis.

The Government is allowing additional funding to be used for homeless exits but it is robbing Peter to pay Paul. It is reducing the funding to prevent people from becoming homeless. What it gains in exits, it will lose in preventions and more people will become homeless. None of what the Minister has said is new. Is he going to take any new different measures to get a grip on this crisis that he and his party colleagues are making worse?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I have set out numerous new measures we have announced in the past number of months to address homelessness. We know the only way we are ultimately going to address the housing, rental and homelessness crises is through increasing supply and not calcifying these crises in permanency, as is proposed by Sinn Féin with its measures. In the new tenancy legislation, we have some of the strongest, if not the strongest, tenancy protection measures in the European Union. We have security of tenure - people know how long they can stay in their homes. This was introduced for the first time in the history of the State. We have effectively ended no-fault evictions for the majority of tenants.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister has not in his own constituency.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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That has now been brought in. The only way a landlord can increase their rent with an existing tenant leaving is if that tenant voluntarily leaves and the Deputy is very much aware of that as well. We have to drive the supply. The Deputy is finding all sorts of accusations in relation to our proposals but he is not putting any forward himself other than calcifying the crisis in permanency.