merrion street

Addressing homelessness remains a priority for this Government and all stakeholders continue to make every effort to address the issue.

While the number of family presentations nationally in August has increased by 13 overall, the figure for Dublin has fallen by 32. Given that there were 102 additional presentations in Dublin, the overall reduction in the number of homeless families in Dublin is 134. The opening of further family hubs/facilities in the coming weeks and months will further assist in meeting the needs of families in emergency accommodation.

Last year, there were over 3,000 exits from homelessness into sustainable tenancies. In the first six months of this year some 1,800 exits were achieved.

The Department and local authorities will continue to work closely, quickly and proactively to identify further solutions that will work to help people and families in this very difficult situation.

An unprecedented €5.3 billion has been ring-fenced for our housing and homelessness plans out to 2021. Those plans are currently being reviewed in light of the experiences of the past year and more details of this will be announced shortly for debate and agreement in the Oireachtas.

August Homeless figures

ENDS
Note to editors;

· In 2016 we provided social housing solutions for 19,000 households – this included 5,000 homes under the build, acquisitions and vacant homes programmes. The expenditure was €935m.
· This year we hope to achieve 21,000 housing solutions and the spend is €1.35billion.
· We currently have a social housing pipeline of 607 developments, which will deliver in excess of 10,000 homes. Of this figure there are 63 developments on site which are delivering 2,400 social homes.
· Increasing housing supply and dealing with the homeless problem is a priority for this Government and substantial funding has been provided. This year we will spend €1.3billion on Social Housing. Rebuilding Ireland provides for expenditure of €5.3billion on 47,000 additional social homes out to 2021.
· Minister Murphy has been tasked to review the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan over the coming months with a view to identifying what new and additional actions can be taken to improve the supply of housing across all tenures, with a particular emphasis on social and affordable housing.
· The public consultation phase was launched on Friday 21st July and will run to today (Friday 11th August).
· As part of this review process, which the Minister intends to conclude by September, he has asked his Department to focus in particular on the broad issue of housing affordability and how we can facilitate more households to access affordable housing, that ideally doesn’t cost them much more than a third of their income.
· Unlocking supply is the key to overcoming many of the housing challenges we face. The Government is firmly focussed on this and we are advancing a wide range of initiatives and schemes across all tenures – social, rental and purchase – to ramp up activity to the levels needed to meet current and future housing demand (In 2014 ESRI estimated this to be 25,000 homes per year, although more recent research by the Institute suggests that “long-run housing demand in the Irish economy was now in the region of 30,000 to 35,000 per annum”).
· Through the various actions under Rebuilding Ireland, the Government’s multi-stranded Action Plan for Housing & Homelessness, we are creating the right conditions and environment to increase housing supply, particularly in our cities and large towns, and to encourage competition among developers.
· New housing supply at scale is now crucial. Rebuilding Ireland is just one year old and during these last 12 months, a range of actions have been taken which will have a real and significant impact on housing supply.
· However, the nature of the housing market is such that it will take some time for its impact to be fully felt in terms of a substantial supply of homes built and available to buy and rent.
· In addition to the unprecedented, ring-fenced housing budget of €5.3billion out to 2021 to deliver 47,000 additional social houses, we are also advancing a range of key actions to stimulate and drive supply: Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund, which is providing €226m in critical enabling infrastructure works to facilitate the delivery of 23,000 new homes by 2021, across 34 major sites in 15 LAs.