Michael Finneran (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fianna Fail)

Ba mhaith liom a rá leis an Seanadóir Doherty go bhfuil an leasú i mBéarla agus mar sin beidh an freagra i mBéarla.

In its new homeless strategy, the Government has decided that the statutory definition of homelessness will not be changed. However, we will review how the definition is applied operationally, for example, to ensure consistency in its application across local authorities. This has been made clear in the homeless strategy and in the course of engagement with representatives of service providers in the make room alliance.

Work is being undertaken by the Homeless Agency, in partnership with the Centre for Housing Research, to develop a position paper on a common operational definition for the Dublin area. This paper will form part of a review to be undertaken through the cross-departmental team on homelessness, in consultation with the national housing consultative committee. FEANTSA has devised a typology, entitled ETHOS, to assist in the understanding of housing exclusion and the risk of homelessness. To ensure awareness of groups that may be at serious risk of homelessness, reference is made to the wider ETHOS typology by the Homeless Agency and by non-governmental bodies. This is relevant to the planning and implementation of effective responses to homelessness, particularly in the context of prevention.

I do not propose to amend the definition of homelessness and I ask the Senator to withdraw amendment No. 30 and the consequential amendments Nos. 5 and 52. There are other elements of amendment No. 52 which are the same as amendment No. 53 and these can be dealt with later.

The statutory definition of homelessness is set out in the Housing Act 1988. It defines a person as homeless if:

(a) there is no accommodation available which, in the opinion of the authority, he, together with any other person who resides normally with him or who might reasonably be expected to reside with him, can reasonably occupy or remain in occupation of;

or

(b) he is living in a hospital, county home, night shelter or other such institution, and is so living because he has no accommodation of the kind referred to in paragraph (a), and he is, in the opinion of the authority, unable to provide accommodation from his own resources.

This definition is generally interpreted as including people living in temporary or insecure accommodation, people living in emergency bed and breakfast accommodation and hostels, people in HSE accommodation because there is no other accommodation available, rough sleepers and victims of domestic violence.

The suggested definition by the Senator in certain cases seems to deal with categories of persons who are possibly at risk of homelessness, but who are not actually homeless. For instance, a person whose house is repossessed might be able to source private rented accommodation with the assistance of rent supplement in certain cases. This may also be true for some of the other categories mentioned. Some of the other categories in paragraph (c) would be included anyway in a general assessment of housing need, such as for persons in unfit housing. There could also be difficulties with statutorily categorising all persons in mobile homes as homeless as this would not be acceptable to Traveller groups.

I launched the homeless strategy in August and this is the first serious attempt by the Government to address the issue of homelessness. The strategy has very clear aims, but it will not be implemented unless we have an implementation plan. That plan will be made available before the end of the year. It is very important that we have the implementation plan and the consultation process is ongoing.

I indicated that I hope to bring forward amendments on the homeless action plan during the Bill's passage through the House. I will deal with that on a statutory basis. I ask people to see things from my position. People are often in emergency accommodation for up to eight years so I have brought forward the homeless strategy with that in mind. One of the main aims of the strategy is that nobody will remain in emergency accommodation for more than six months and that we will deal with homelessness and sleeping rough by the end of 2010. That involves many stakeholders and I am involved in a series of meetings with them all. I have met some of them many times. We have a half-day meeting coming up soon with many of the stakeholders, where we hope to finalise our discussions.

I am very committed to this. In those Estimates for which I have responsibility, it is one of the areas where I have increased the allocation, by 5%, for next year. Almost €100 million will be available to deal with homelessness in 2009, made up of €62 million from my Department, over €30 million from the HSE and the remainder from local authorities. I am very committed to the issue of homelessness. The organisations involved have given public recognition of that. The homelessness issue will be dealt with in the implementation plan, which will be put on a statutory footing. I await our final discussions on that plan.