Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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396. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the context of the national directive in respect of section 10 funding for homeless and related services which has resulted in a 75% cut in funding for Dundalk Women's Refuge; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16630/14]

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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397. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will provide in tabular form the Government funding under section 10 homeless and related services for local councils across the State for each year from 2009; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16631/14]

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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398. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will provide in tabular form his Department’s funding for women’s refuges across the State for each year from 2009; the basis on which this funding was allocated; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16632/14]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 396 to 398, inclusive, together.

My Department’s role in relation to homelessness involves the provision of a national framework of policy, legislation and funding to underpin the role of housing authorities in addressing homelessness at local level. Statutory responsibility in relation to the provision of accommodation for homeless persons and related services rests with housing authorities. The purposes for which housing authorities may incur expenditure in addressing homelessness are prescribed in Section 10 of the Housing Act 1988. My Department does not fund any service directly but provides funding to housing authorities towards the operational costs of homeless accommodation and related services under Section 10 of the Housing Act 1988. Housing authorities provide additional funding from their own resources.

The total Section 10 funding provided by my Department to housing authorities on a regional basis for the years 2009 to 2013 , the component of that funding which was for domestic violence refuges, are set out in the tables below. The regional approach is considered more appropriate as it helps to bring a more strategic perspective to bear on action to address homelessness, including avoidance of over-concentration of homelessness services in certain centres and promoting appropriate regional availability of services, consistent with need.

Under the funding arrangements, responsibility for rigorous assessment, appraisal and decision making in relation to proposals for funding of particular services within the current budgetary allocation rests with the homelessness statutory Management Group of the respective region. My Department has no function in regard to decisions on operational matters which, in the case of the Dundalk women’s Refuge, are a matter for the North East Homelessness Management Group, with Louth County Council as the lead authority.

I recently notified housing authorities of provisional regional homelessness allocations for 2014 and these will be formalised when the protocol for the delegation of Section 10 homeless funding has been agreed between my Department and the lead housing authority in each of the 9 regions. In notifying housing authorities, I sought to encourage them to target their homelessness spending on certain categories of expenditure and indicative national targets were identified to guide authorities in framing their homeless budgets. A national expenditure target of 4.4% (or €2.2 million) was identified for domestic violence refuges in 2014.

The Homelessness Oversight Group, which I established in 2013 for the purposes of reviewing the progress of the approach being advocated in the Homelessness Policy Statement, identifying obstacles and proposing solutions has submitted its first report to me. The report, a copy of which is available on my Department’s website at , recommended that existing funding arrangements for the provision of domestic violence refuge accommodation and services should be transferred to the new Child and Family Agency; this will be considered in the context of my Departments wider engagement with the Agency in relation to the report’s recommendations. A Homelessness Policy Implementation Team is tasked with implementing the Homelessness Oversight Group's First Report and it will report on this plan to the Cabinet Committee on Social Policy later this month and quarterly thereafter.

Funding provided under Section 10 of the Housing Act 1988

Funding provided under Section 10 of the Housing Act 1988 in respect of domestic violence refuges