Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein)
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278. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the amount paid out for emergency and short-term accommodation, including the cost of family hubs, to house those who are homeless. [4532/19]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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In relation to operational costs for homeless accommodation and related services, my Department does not provide funding for services directly but provides funding to housing authorities towards these costs. Under the funding arrangements, housing authorities must provide at least 10% of the cost of services from their own resources. Housing authorities may also incur additional expenditure on homeless related services outside of these funding arrangements with my Department. Therefore, the exact amounts spent by housing authorities on homeless services, as well as the types of accommodation and the service providers engaged, are a matter for those authorities.

Exchequer funding for homeless services is provided through my Department to housing authorities on a regional basis. The following table sets out the funding recouped to housing authorities on a regional basis for the years 2015 to 2018. The total budget for 2019 is €146 million.

Exchequer funding for homeless services under the Housing Act, 1988

Financial reports from each of the regions, setting out expenditure on homeless services, including family hubs, in each region are published on my Department's website at the following link: www.housing.gov.ie/node/5498. Full year financial reports for 2018 are currently being prepared by housing authorities.

In addition, capital funding amounting to €14.2 million and €48.5 million was provided to housing authorities for the development of family hub facilities in 2017 and 2018, respectively.