Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 199: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the actions he has taken in the past 12 months to address the ongoing homelessness crisis. [30316/05]

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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Local authorities and the Health Service Executive are responsible for meeting the accommodation and health care needs of homeless persons. The Government's integrated and preventative strategies on homelessness provide the framework within which the agencies fulfil these responsibilities.

Under the terms of the integrated strategy, homeless fora, representative of the statutory and voluntary homeless sectors, were established at local authority level and homeless action plans, adopted under their aegis, are being implemented. These developments have resulted in the provision of a wide range of additional accommodation and services for homeless persons. Rough sleepers have been enabled to access emergency accommodation and homeless persons have been facilitated to move out of emergency accommodation into accommodation more suitable to their needs. Increased levels of day care facilities, together with specific provisions to meet the needs of people with addiction problems or who are sleeping rough, as well as homeless ex-offenders, have been put in place. While the emphasis was, initially, on the provision of emergency accommodation options, there is now general agreement that sufficient emergency accommodation is available for those who wish to avail of it and the emphasis must now move to more long-term solutions.

While a range of social and private rented long-term accommodation is available the amount of such accommodation needs to be increased. Steps have already been taken to encourage local authorities to focus their future activity in this area and a number of recent developments will facilitate their efforts to make progress. The development of the local authority housing action plans 2004 to 2008, the introduction of the rental accommodation scheme and the information gained from the assessment of housing need carried out in March 2005 will enable local authorities to include the specific housing needs of homeless persons in their overall housing programmes and enhance the availability of housing options for those homeless persons capable of independent living. A tenancy sustainment scheme soon to be piloted by the homeless agency with funding from my Department will facilitate previously homeless tenants to maintain their tenancies whether in public or private sector accommodation.

The continued provision of adequate funding is of major importance. While the provision of accommodation and related services for homeless persons is the responsibility of local authorities, my Department recoups to them 90% of their expenditure in this area. In 2004, a total of €45.7 million was recouped to local authorities while the allocation for 2005 is €51 million. This brings to €240 million the total funding made available for this purpose since 2000. The Department of Health and Children has provided an additional €30.2 million in the same period to meet the care needs of homeless persons.

An independent review of the implementation of the integrated and preventative homeless strategies and their associated action plans is nearing completion and the outcome of the review will help to inform future developments in this area.