Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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121. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government his views on the concerns of the many housing and homelessness organisations about the level of homelessness being masked by the Covid-19 pandemic measures. [17791/20]

Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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122. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government his plans to reconvene the National Homeless Consultative Forum. [17792/20]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 121 and 122 together.

Supporting individuals and families facing homelessness is a priority for my Department. The Programme for Government, "Our Shared Future", commits to reducing and preventing homelessness and provides detail on how the Government will approach this challenge.

I have established a High Level Homelessness Taskforce, to provide a forum for engagement with key organisations working to address homelessness. The Taskforce will input on the implementation of the commitments on homelessness in the Programme for Government.

A National Homelessness Consultative Forum was also established to facilitate engagement between Government Departments and Agencies providing services to homeless households and representatives of NGO service providers. The next meeting of the Forum will be convened by my Department later this year.