Homelessness funding
Deputy Guirke says homelessness is at record levels and argues charities lack the resources to cope. The Tánaiste says Government funding for housing providers has increased and claims prevention and faster exits from emergency accommodation show progress.
The Tánaiste asked people here about priorities for the budget. The number of people who are homeless or in homeless emergency accommodation now stands at 14,159, of whom 4,316 are children. In 2015, this number stood at 3,600 and most people thought it could not get any worse. One service dealing with homeless people is A Lending Hand and its director Ms Keira Gill. While charities and organisations are doing their best, they do not have enough financial resources. This is evident when thousands of people are now looking for help. The director of Advocacy, Mr. Mike Allen, said that having any person living on our streets was both morally unacceptable and, with more effective policies, entirely avoidable.
Last Saturday, the bodies of two homeless men, Donal Scanlon, 49, and Alex Warnick, 42, were taken from the Grand Canal near Dublin city centre. One floral tribute left along the canal read, "May you rest in peace. Our Government has absolutely failed you. I hope where you have gone is better than this hellhole". In this rich country, with the budget coming up and with billions being talked about in tax and spending packages, I am asking for a priority to be included to solve the homeless crisis and to give children who are being brought up in emergency accommodation a chance in life.
Comment on this
The Government has continually prioritised the homelessness issue.
Government has provided increased funding, year after year, to many of the social housing providers and approved housing bodies, AHB, quite an extensive number of which receive very substantial funding. As I said in an earlier reply, our focus has been on prevention where we have had significant success-----.
Comment on this
-----in exiting people out of emergency accommodation more quickly than would have been the case before. We have built more houses in the past four years than were built in the previous ten. We intend to continue to build more houses, particularly social houses, to deal with the social housing crisis and the issue of homelessness. Homelessness is a multifaceted and complex issue. I would not simplify it to the degree the Deputy did earlier.