Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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150. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of children are now in emergency homeless accommodation; to provide details on the length of time children are being left in emergency accommodation under the following categories: 1-6 months, 6-9 months, 9-12 months, 12-18 months, 18-24 months, and more than 24 months; if he has any policy or plans to establish a policy of a maximum stay time in emergency accomodation for children, given the seriously adverse impact on their well-being; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3930/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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My Department’s role in relation to homelessness involves the provision of a national framework of policy, legislation and funding to underpin the role of local authorities in addressing homelessness at local level. Statutory responsibility in relation to the provision of accommodation and related services for homeless persons rests with individual local authorities.

My Department currently gathers and publishes data on a monthly basis on the number of homeless persons accommodated in emergency accommodation funded and overseen by local authorities. These reports are based on data provided by local authorities, produced through the Pathway Accommodation & Support System (PASS). The monthly homelessness report includes details of individuals, families and the dependants of these families who accessed emergency accommodation during the relevant count week of the month in question. The most recently published data is in respect of December 2024. The reports are collated on a regional basis and are available on my Department's website at the following link: and are also published to the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform & Digitalisation open data portal, .

My Department also publishes quarterly progress reports which are based on quarterly performance reports submitted by the nine regional lead authorities responsible for the administration of homeless services at local level. These quarterly performance reports include details of the numbers of individuals prevented from entering emergency accommodation, and those exiting emergency accommodation into tenancies and the duration of stay in emergency accommodation. The quarterly progress report summarises the data submitted to the Department.

The duration of stay data is reported as six-monthly bands ranging from less than six months to more than 24 months and is also disaggregated by household type. These bands refer to consecutive stays in emergency accommodation and are based on a point-in-time count, informed by emergency accommodation usage on the last night in the quarter. The most recent published data is in respect of Q4 2024 and the report is available on my Department’s website at the following link:

A key priority for the Government is to support families experiencing homelessness to exit homelessness to a tenancy as soon as possible. An allocation of €303 million, an increase of €61m on the 2024 provision, has been made available under Budget 2025 to support the work of local authorities and their service delivery partners. This includes the provision emergency accommodation and supports to households experiencing homelessness.

Increasing housing supply is key to addressing homelessness and Budget 2025 provided Exchequer funding be of €4.85bn to support housing programmes, comprising €3.2bn capital funding and €1.65bn current funding. The Exchequer Capital provision of €3.2bn will be supplemented by Land Development Agency (LDA) investment (projected up to €1.25bn) and Housing Finance Agency (HFA) lending (projected €1.65bn), resulting in an overall capital provision of over €6bn.