Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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598. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the total amounts spent or budgeted for homeless services in 2015 and 2016. [25369/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department provides current funding to housing authorities towards the cost of providing accommodation and related services for homeless persons under Section 10 of the Housing Act 1988. The funding amounts provided to homeless services by other State agencies are a matter for the relevant Ministers. Under ‘Section 10’ funding arrangements, housing authorities must provide at least 10% of the cost of any service they are funding, from within their own resources. Furthermore, housing authorities may also incur additional expenditure on homeless related services outside of the Section 10 funding arrangements. Therefore the exact amounts spent by housing authorities on homeless services are a matter for those authorities.

Details of the Section 10 Exchequer funding provided to housing authorities by my Department during 2015 and to date in 2016 are set out in the following table on a regional basis. Budget 2016 confirmed a national budget of €70 million in Exchequer funding under Section 10 arrangements, recoupments amounting to almost €40 have been made to housing authorities to date. The funding needs of the various regions will be kept under review on an on-going basis.

Exchequer Funding provided under Section 10 of the Housing Act 1988