Vol. 561 No. 1
480 Ms O. Mitchell asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the reason, despite the launch in May 2000 of the Homeless Strategy, there are now fewer hostel beds for men in Dublin than three years ago; if he has any monitoring and evaluation process in place to determine the value and efficacy of the strategy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3338/03]
I am not aware of an overall reduction in the number of hostel beds for homeless men in Dublin, compared to three years ago. While the number of beds in some hostels has been reduced as part of the redevelopment-improvement of the hostels, other hostels have come on stream.
The Homeless Agency has a monitoring and evaluation system in place to monitor the standard of homeless services in the Dublin area. At national level I have asked the interdepartmental team on homelessness to consider how best the homeless strategies and their implementation via the local action plans might be evaluated. This evaluation should be initiated later this year.
