Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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807. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the amount allocated from his Department to fund homeless services in 2017; the additional allocation to homeless services allocated by the local authorities; the amount spent to date on homeless services; and the expected final expenditure on homeless services by the end of 2017. [32368/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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In 2017, current funding totaling €97.8 million is being made available by my Department for homeless services overseen by housing authorities, under Section 10 of the Housing Act 1988.  The level of funding available from my Department for homelessness services has grown by some 55% since 2014 when €45 million was provided to housing authorities.

It should be noted that housing authorities must provide at least 10% of the cost of any funded services from their own resources.  Furthermore, housing authorities may also incur additional expenditure on homeless related services outside of the Section 10 funding arrangements that apply.  Therefore, the exact amounts to be spent by housing authorities on homeless services are a matter for those authorities.  

To date this year, my Department has made payments of almost €28 million in homeless services funding to housing authorities.  I expect the full national allocation to be utilised in 2017 and I will, of course, continue to keep the funding needs of the various authorities under review on an ongoing basis.