Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

I thank Senators for their views and the opportunity to speak on the issue of homelessness, which we all accept is of major concern. I welcome the overall goal of the MakeRoom campaign to end homelessness by 2010. The campaign's representatives have indicated this means "nobody will sleep rough; nobody will stay in emergency accommodation for longer than is absolutely necessary and nobody will become homeless because of a lack of appropriate services". This is very much the Government's goal also. As we become more affluent, it becomes even more important to look after the vulnerable.

The Government's commitment to tackling homelessness is clear and is evident from the funding provided. Six or seven years ago, the Department provided just over €12 million on a national basis for the provision of accommodation and related services for homeless persons. This has increased to €50 million per year, which is a huge increase. If the issue were only about accommodation, we would have solved it a long time ago. It is much more complicated and it is not simply a question of building houses.

In addition to the money spent by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, the Department of Health and Children spends an additional 50% or more on care for the people in question. Many homeless persons have very complex addiction and mental health problems. Years ago such people were probably placed in psychiatric institutions but we are now more enlightened and let them out into the community. Some, however, fall through the cracks and very often end up homeless. Reference was made to the safety net for gaps in many services. We must be aware of this but also note that it is not just a question of putting a roof over people's heads. If it were, the solution would be much simpler.

Since 2000, when Homelessness — An Integrated Strategy was published, the Government has provided some €450 million in capital and current funding for accommodation and care related services for homeless persons. There have been very significant improvements in services for homeless people in recent years. The integrated strategy recognised the need to address factors not only related to the provision of accommodation but also to health, care and welfare, education and training, and prevention in order to tackle homelessness effectively. An interdepartmental committee is working on this.

The Homeless Agency was established in Dublin as a partnership body to co-ordinate the delivery of homeless services. Similarly, local homeless fora were established at city and county levels in the rest of the country. These partnerships between local authorities, the Health Service Executive and other relevant statutory and voluntary organisations have developed three-year local homeless action plans. The plans set out how accommodation, health, settlement, welfare and other services are to be provided to homeless persons in a co-ordinated fashion and they have been vital in achieving the progress made to date. The partnerships have pulled together many strands and achieved co-ordination among voluntary groups and Departments, which is very important.

The homeless preventative strategy, published four years ago, built on the achievements of the integrated strategy with the aim of providing a direct preventative response by targeting groups at risk of becoming homeless, including adult offenders, young offenders, those leaving mental health facilities and acute hospitals and young people leaving institutional care. Senator Henry referred to people leaving prison but these people are catered for in the strategy. If offenders are on temporary release, the system may not always work fully but it is meant to. The strategy is such that people coming out of hospital or prison, or people from the Army who might have been living in an institutional set-up for a while, can be catered for through co-ordinated services, thus preventing the problem of homelessness from arising.

Real improvements have been made, as evidenced by the falling number of homeless persons reported in Counted In 2005, the Homeless Agency's most recent periodic assessment of homelessness in Dublin. The data indicate a 40% decrease in the number of rough sleepers and a 19% reduction in the number of homeless households, as compared with the figures in the assessment of 2002.

Through the vital work of the local homeless fora, there has been significant progress. The housing needs assessment 2005, which we published some months ago, recorded a 46% fall in the number of homeless persons nationally by comparison with previous years. I am not suggesting everything is perfect or that the problem has gone away — it has not and will not, in the short term in any case — but circumstances have improved. We are working very much with local authorities, the HSE and the voluntary bodies. We fund the voluntary groups, which are part of the campaign and part of the Government's service provision. Many of the services are of an outreach nature and many of the groups have availed of the capital grants to provide accommodation.

The social partnership agreement, Towards 2016, contains a commitment to the elimination of the long-term occupancy of emergency homeless accommodation by 2010. This is well-aligned with the goals of the MakeRoom campaign. It also ties in with the Homeless Agency's overarching objective of eliminating, by 2010, long-term homelessness and the need to sleep rough in Dublin.

One will be aware of the Review of Implementation of Homeless Strategies, prepared by Fitzpatrick Associates and published earlier this year. The consultants engaged in wide-ranging consultation with both homeless service providers and homeless persons as part of the review process. The Government accepted the broad thrust of the recommendations of the review and is committed to taking them forward. Work is under way in my Department on preparing a revised and updated strategy on homelessness, having regard to the recommendations of the review.

We are at a crucial stage in addressing homelessness, a point with which the MakeRoom campaign would agree. We have made good progress in dealing with the emergency aspects. Senator Brady mentioned the Dublin City Council bus which brings individuals to emergency accommodation every night if they so need it. Needs very much depend on the time of year. Many of these people choose not to get on the bus or to accept a bed for the night, for whatever reason. All our energies are spent on trying to attract such people to use these services. If we can get them to use the services, we can build up a certain level of understanding and start to work with them to meet many of their other needs. The need for a roof over their heads at night is just one of the many needs of homeless people, as I have said.

Our current homeless population was largely identified in last year's housing needs assessment. Systems and structures are being put in place to ensure that the long-term housing, care and support needs of homeless people are met. The Department has an ongoing focus on supporting projects in the areas of tenancy sustainment and resettlement, as well as on moving people out of homelessness. We all agree that a need exists in such areas. There is enough emergency accommodation. We are working with the agencies which are involved in the various projects to move people on. That is a much slower process, however. We are paying for various services which are run by the voluntary groups. We are all frustrated by the results because things are not happening as quickly as we would like. We cannot throw money at it and expect it to be solved six or nine months later. We are dealing with complex people and complex problems. The departmental projects I mentioned will involve the provision of a range of long-term accommodation options for homeless people, including the provision of social housing by local authorities and the voluntary housing sector through the local authorities' social and affordable housing action plans.

I listened to Senator Tuffy's speech. I remind her that a great deal of money is being spent. The Department's housing Vote is approximately €2 billion per annum, €1 billion of which is being spent on what the Senator referred to as standard local authority housing. We are trying to move away from that in many ways. We are trying to provide integrated housing estates, to develop the voluntary sector and to police the Part V guidelines. We are trying to move away from the development of vast local authority housing estates. Some €240 million of the €2 billion I mentioned is being spent on remedial works and regeneration as part of an attempt to correct the mistakes of previous decades. I got the impression that Senator Tuffy is longing and yearning for the days when we developed nothing other than vast local authority estates, with hundreds of houses. I assure the Senator that the days when we did that are gone.

We are building approximately 6,000 local authority houses, 1,500 voluntary houses and 3,000 affordable houses each year. We are meeting the needs of approximately 12,000 families each year. Our spending on the national development plan is ahead of schedule. We do not intend to develop vast housing estates as we did in the past in places like Ballymun, Clondalkin, Moyross, O'Malley Park and Sligo. Ministers and other politicians thought at the time that it was great to dispense keys at a rate of knots, but 25 years on we are spending approximately €200 million each year on trying to correct the mistakes which were made when we had a vast throughput of housing. Such a system is not the answer. Senator Tuffy quoted a report that was produced by the National Economic and Social Council, but nobody ever quotes the Economic and Social Research Institute. Perhaps we are all guilty of selectively quoting from the various Government agencies as it suits us.