Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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230. To ask the Minister for Social Protection whether his Department provides the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government with the number of homeless adults and children in his Department's funded accommodation services; and if he will engage with his counterparts in the Departments of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government and Children and Youth Affairs and supply these figures from January 2017 to ensure that they are included in the Department of Housing, Planning, Community, and Local Government official monthly homeless figures. [38443/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy is aware from the response to an earlier parliamentary question, the New Communities Unit (NCU) of my Department offers assistance to families who are primarily non-Irish, homeless and generally without recourse to any weekly income. The main focus of this unit is to ensure that families who have an entitlement receive an income maintenance payment, under the terms of the relevant legislation.

In addition, non-Irish homeless families have been referred to this unit directly by the Central Placement Service, operated on behalf of the four local authorities by Dublin City Council, and the staff in the NCU have facilitated booking these people into emergency accommodation. This accommodation is not funded by the Department of Social Protection, rather, it is sourced and funded by Dublin City Council under Section 10 of the Housing Act (1988).

The practice, whereby staff in the NCU act as booking agents in such circumstances, is a residual one from when the NCU was based in the HSE. Officials from my Department are considering the appropriateness and nature of the NCU’s involvement in the delivery of this service at present.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.