Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government debate -
Wednesday, 20 Jun 2018

Homeless Figures: Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government

Chairman

At the request of the broadcasting and recording service, members and visitors in the Public Gallery are requested to ensure that for the duration of the meeting their mobile telephones are turned off completely or switched to aeroplane, safe or flight mode, depending on the device. It is not sufficient to put telephones on silent, as this causes interference with the broadcasting system.

No. 5 on the agenda is an examination of the homeless figures. On behalf of the committee, I welcome the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, and Ms Mary Hurley and Mr. David Kelly from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. I draw the attention of witnesses to the fact that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to the committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government (Deputy Eoghan Murphy)

I thank the Chair and members for the opportunity to appear again before the committee, this time to discuss the very serious issue of homeless numbers and to update the committee on two important reports on homelessness which I published yesterday. These reports were prepared by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive and the inter-agency group on homelessness chaired by Mr. John Murphy, former Secretary General. I am joined by Ms Mary Hurley, assistant secretary, who has responsibility for social housing and homelessness, and Mr. David Kelly, principal officer, who has responsibility for the Department's homelessness and housing inclusion supports unit.

I reiterate that tackling homelessness continues to be a top priority for the Government. I have always said that one family in emergency accommodation or one individual on the street is one too many and that remains my position. Working with my Department and local authorities, the committee can be assured that every effort will continue to be made to address this issue. The two reports that I have recently received will be carefully considered and any further policy responses that may be required will be brought forward to ensure we continue to provide individuals and families with the supports they need. Resources and funding are not an issue, and I have made the point to local authorities many times that all the required funding and resources of the State are available to them to advance new initiatives in response to homelessness in their local areas. I have emphasised the importance of being innovative in their responses to homelessness and in providing the most suitable and appropriate solutions and supports to those experiencing homelessness in their local areas.

While homeless families and individuals continue to present, it is important to note that progress is also being made on the ground. The number of people sleeping rough has fallen dramatically. In April 2018, the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, DRHE, undertook a count of rough sleepers and confirmed that the number had reduced by 40%, from 184 in November 2017 to 110 in April 2018. Housing First is working, with a new national director and a retention rate of almost 90%. This shows that we are keeping people out of homelessness once we get them into a home. In 2017, 4,729 individuals exited homelessness, which is a 54% increase on the previous year. The number accommodated in hotels still remains below the high level it reached in 2017. There are now 22 family hubs in place and these are the preferred first response.

People are spending less time now in emergency accommodation than they did previously, thanks primarily to the new family hubs, with 45% of families in emergency accommodation exiting within six months.

Through the dedicated efforts of exit teams, 2,080 families left hotels last year, the majority of whom moved into homes rather than hubs.

Unfortunately, despite the number of exits from homelessness that we are achieving, ongoing presentations to homeless services mean the number of people in emergency accommodation remains unacceptably high. According to the April homelessness report, there were 5,963 adults in emergency accommodation, including 1,712 families with 3,689 dependants. At my request, research was conducted earlier this year and a comprehensive report was submitted last week by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive. The report, which is available on my Department's website, includes detailed information across a range of areas, including reasons for family homelessness; prevention activities; citizenship of service users; the use of emergency accommodation; and exits from emergency accommodation. I very much welcome the progress, outlined in the report, that the DRHE is making in preventing households from becoming homeless. There is scope for us to do more in this area, particularly as the report refers to the number of individuals who are unwilling to consider a HAP supported tenancy in the private rental sector as a housing solution.

The report examines the reasons for family homelessness, with the vast bulk of presentations relating either to family circumstances or issues with private rented accommodation. The data collected on presentations arising from issues with private rented accommodation are not sufficiently detailed to allow us to analyse the reasons in most cases, but where sufficient information is provided, the issues specified mainly relate to the sale of a property.

With regard to exits from emergency accommodation, the report noted that families will typically exit emergency accommodation within a quicker timeframe when residing in a family hub rather than a hotel or bed and breakfast accommodation. This emphasises the importance of the continued development of family hubs. While I would prefer not to have any families in emergency accommodation, it is clear that a hub provides a better temporary solution than a hotel, and hubs are only temporary. The report identified that approximately 500 people with a range of medical conditions are being accommodated in emergency accommodation. For the majority of these individuals, Housing First will not be the answer and their complex needs may require longer term supported accommodation. The report outlines that 595 offers of social housing were made to households in emergency accommodation, of which 81% were accepted. It also notes that families willing to avail of HAP were found to exit from homelessness much faster than families that exited through an offer of local authority or approved housing body tenancies.

Details of the citizenship of services users are also included in the report, with Irish nationals accounting for 67% of users of emergency accommodation, other EU nationals accounting for 12% and non-EU nationals accounting for 21%. A number of the issues identified in the DRHE report highlight areas where other arms of government have a role to play and agencies such as the Health Service Executive and Tusla are actively involved in the response to homelessness. To ensure the State's response to homelessness is effectively co-ordinated, I established the homelessness inter-agency group following the housing summit of last year. The group is chaired by Mr. John Murphy, former Secretary General of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. The group includes representation from my Department, the Department of Health, the HSE, the Departments of Children and Youth Affairs, Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Justice and Equality and Public Expenditure and Reform, the County and City Management Association, the DRHE and Tusla. The group recently submitted a report to me, setting out a number of recommendations to improve the State's response to homelessness. A number of recommendations relate to areas within my Department's remit. It is my intention to bring forward policy responses to address these recommendations within a short timeframe.

While there is much work that we can do to prevent homelessness and improve the experiences of those who become homeless, the real issue my Department is striving to address is the delivery of more houses. We will continue to face a serious challenge with people presenting to our services until significantly more homes are built, both in the social and private housing areas. Rebuilding Ireland is a six-year programme to bring our housing sector back to a stable state and we will achieve sustainable progress on the homeless front as new homes are delivered. Last year alone, more than 26,000 additional households had their social housing need met, utilising a budget of €1.4 billion. To build on this progress and meet the needs of additional households, the budget was increased by 36% this year to €1.9 billion.

We must bear in mind, as is made clear in both reports, that for many people in emergency accommodation today, simply providing a home will not be the answer. Their needs are more complex and we must be sensitive to those needs. That requires more complex policy responses that take time to implement and will not always be successful in the first instance.

I look forward to engaging with the committee members on the reports, both of which have now been published.

Chairman

For members who have just arrived, each member will have five minutes to ask questions and there will be five minutes for answers. We will be strict with time as many members wish to contribute. I call Deputy Darragh O'Brien.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

I thank the Minister for his contribution and the report which I have read. Fundamentally, we are all committed to ending homelessness and doing what we can to ensure that happens. Clarity and transparency are important when dealing with homeless figures. What is the Department's response to Focus Ireland's view of the report set out this morning by Mr. Mike Allen when he described the report as "a communications strategy for bad news rather than a research strategy to resolve a problem". That is a serious charge, I would have thought, from a group which is on the front line in dealing with homelessness.

I have a couple of questions that I want to go through because we are restricted to five minutes and I would appreciate the Minister's response. The report states clearly that the Government intends to achieve capacity for a more detailed analysis. How will that be done given that less information will be available from quarterly reporting as opposed to monthly reporting? I wonder what is the rationale for the decision to move to quarterly reporting and how that will be done. If the Minister has fewer data that he is willing to publish, how will it be easier to look at trends and react proactively to remove people from risk areas?

Although I do not want to jump from one issue to another, I want to ask about the homeless inter-agency group which was set up in 2007. I have raised this issue by way of parliamentary question. I understand the group only met once in 2017. Has it been formally replaced? Is the Minister using other structures? If anything, I would have thought he would consider reactivating the inter-agency group. From my perspective, it is crucially important that we have more, not less, oversight.

Focus Ireland also takes issue with the fact that the report does not mention the overwhelming evidence of a growing shortage of properties available within the rent limits applied under the housing assistance payment, HAP. Will the limits be revised? I note work has been done in risk areas on stopping families falling into homelessness. Will the Minister elaborate on that work? I was not too sure when I heard Ms Eileen Gleeson mention on "Morning Ireland" that the Dublin Region Housing Executive did not regard HAP limits as a problem or one of the reasons people were falling into homelessness. I ask the Minister to address those couple of issues and I will come back in afterwards.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I thank Deputy Darragh O'Brien for his questions. His first point related to the response to the report from Focus Ireland. The response of Focus Ireland, in attacking the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive in this way, was disappointing. The DRHE is on the front line, helping thousands of people and doing an incredible amount of work. It works with Focus Ireland, Dublin Simon and the Peter McVerry Trust and together these organisations do excellent work.

This report is a detailed study, although not as detailed as I would like it to be. It is clear that we need to do more work in this area. The report also comes with some robust recommendations and speaks to some truths that we need to speak to regarding people's fears around HAP. We need to be honest about these matters.

It is a welcome report. I am interested in driving the solutions and working together with the committee to do that. That is what we should be focused on. Focus Ireland seemed to have picked a particular line out of the inter-agency group report, which is a different report, and attacked the DRHE on that basis. There is a misinterpretation of the relevant line in the inter-agency group report and maybe we can come back to that in a further round of questions.

No decision has been made on the recommendation in both reports that we move to quarterly reporting and we will not jump to a decision either. What we have is the kind of detail that we would like to see in a quarterly report and some additional detail.

It is important to note that increased frequency does not mean increased transparency. There is a reason a number of bodies produce quarterly reports. We can better understand trends over one quarter and get more detail and the kind of detail that we do not get in monthly reporting. Monthly reporting gives us different figures, some of which increase, while others decrease, but does not give us the detailed information that we have in this report. We need to reform the pathway accommodation and support system of information known as PASS to obtain more detailed information in it. We will see if it can be upgraded and ascertain what is the best way to publish information that informs us about matters that are helpful in terms of policy formation. The report has told us something helpful about HAP - I am sure we will get into that in more detail - that the monthly reports do not tell us.

On the operation of HAP, roughly 2,270 tenancies have been established through HAP this year alone. That includes the establishment of approximately 900 homeless HAP tenancies. We continue to establish 300 to 350 HAP tenancies a week. HAP is working; it is successful.

There are some problems that need to be fixed and thus help people who get trapped in emergency accommodation or fear going down the HAP route either because of what they have heard or it might not meet some of the needs they feel a permanent home would meet, which I understand. We need to talk about some policy responses that will help fix those issues.

An inter-agency group was established following the September housing summit but I think the Deputy referred to another group called the national homeless consultative committee, NHCC.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

Yes.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I can assure the Deputy that the committee will meet again this year. It has been recommended by the inter-agency group that the NHCC meet on a bi-annual basis. It is very important that groups meet and share information. I can assure the Deputy that my Department is in constant contact with the NGO sector. We constantly meet NGOs in a round-table format and we will have another such engagement before the next housing summit on 3 July.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

Is the Minister standing down the NHCC?

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

No, we are not. In a way we became more proactive and, therefore, more regular meetings occurred but with different arrangements. The committee will meet again, which is one of the recommendations made by the inter-agency group. I believe that I have answered the first set of questions asked by the Deputy.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

Yes. I thank the Minister.

Chairman

The allocation is ten minutes and two minutes remain. Does Deputy Darragh O'Brien wish to ask more questions?

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

Yes. The Minister has mentioned that there has been a focus on HAP, in particular the fears about same, and I have discussed them with his officials. Let us bear in mind that sometimes one is placed on a housing transfer housing list when one avails of HAP. The local authorities do not deal with HAP in a uniform manner. I believe that many people will decide not to transfer to HAP because they believe they will not remain on the main housing list. That is a big problem for people who are eight, nine or ten years on a housing list. It is a problem when the Department says: "Okay, you are on HAP now, we may be able to assist in sourcing a rental property that has a 12-month lease but you are not on the housing list." However, later one is told that one is not on the housing list but on the transfer list. The resistance to HAP is, therefore, understandable. I urge the Minister to change that provision and for a uniform approach to be adopted across the country.

We need a uniform approach to be adopted for the additional discretionary payment for HAP, and also where people receive top-up payments and assistance from their families. I have heard of instances where HAP has been refused in total because a local authority has not allowed an additional top-up payment. More important, this matter is about the uniform nature of the application of the HAP and where a person or family is placed on a housing list. When the Department must explain that a person or family has been moved to the transfer list and that there is another main housing list, then all of us can understand why there is a serious concern and resistance to the scheme.

Some very good items have been highlighted in the report about the fears and limitations of HAP. How quickly will the Minister implement these changes? He has indicated that he will take the views of committee members on board. I urge him to ensure that if someone goes on HAP that he or she remains on the main housing list and to remove all ambiguity about the matter. Perhaps there is no resistance to doing so but I do not understand why such a provision has not been made up to now. Removing all ambiguity about the matter would make a massive difference straight away. The Minister would certainly have my support if he decided to adopt my proposed change.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

The purpose of this engagement is to hear the views of the committee members as to what they think, as a committee or individual representatives, is the best way forward based on the information in the reports. I wrote to local authority chief executives, in advance of the next housing summit, to inform them about the dual focus of the summit, one of which will be these reports. What I would like to do in advance of and during the summit is to reach joint decisions with the local authority chief executives on what to do. Other recommendations are for myself and other Departments to continue to do a body of work until we reach a policy change because some of the recommendations speak to progressing, reviewing or investigating.

HAP has been successful but some people fear it for different reasons. Some HAP tenancies have failed but tenancies in the normal private sector fail too. Social housing for homeless people fails for tenants as well. Legislation provides that one must ensure that a place meets the housing need of the person so he or she comes off the housing list. For the vast majority of people, HAP meets the housing need. However, we must ensure that local authorities use the transfer list because fewer than 1,000 people have come off the transfer list to date. I mean they have moved from HAP to a permanent social housing home. We need to increase the delivery through the transfer stream.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

I apologise for interrupting the Minister but I wish to mention the long-term housing need. While he may say that a person's housing need is met, for someone's security, he or she does not believe his or her long-term housing need is met if one must avail of a 12-month tenancy arrangement as opposed to securing social housing.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I do not have the numbers in front of me. I believe that the majority of HAP tenancies have lasted well beyond 12 months. The way that HAP is structured allows flexibility, which people prefer and they believe the provision meets their housing needs in the longer term. The provision does not prevent them being on the transfer list and then getting into a permanent social housing home in the future. We need to do more work around the provision. We need to do more work around the floating HAP stock. In Dublin, there is a placefinder to help people locate a place. People are allocated a place in other parts of the country where the HAP scheme operates. If we manage to provide floating HAP stock in Dublin then when people present we can put them directly into a home. There is something wrong with a system where someone is placed in emergency accommodation rather than a home. We need to address those factors and some of the recommendations in the report will help us to do so.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I have two sets of questions that I will deal with separately.

When the homeless figures for March were published as many as 578 adults and children were removed from the list. As a committee, we invited the Minister to come here to provide us with the detail as to why those people were removed from the list and allow us to properly interrogate the matter. He said that he could not meet us at that time because he was waiting for more detailed information. He also told us that two reports were going to be produced, one by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, DRHE, and another by the inter-agency group, and that when their reports were completed he would come in here to talk to us about the issue of alleged miscategorisation. We raised the issue again after April had passed and then we organised today's meeting. In the first instance, the people who requested this meeting want it to be about the miscategorisation, as the Minister called it, of 875 adults and children. Yet nowhere in either of the reports that has been presented to us has the Minister given us the information that we sought two months ago. We asked for the figure of 875 adults and children to be broken down into the number of adults and children in each of the affected local authority areas, and the types of accommodation and arrangements they were in at the point at which it was decided to remove them from the monthly reporting lists. Such information was requested as it would allow us to interrogate whether the measures were appropriate. Was the Minister misinformed about the contents of these reports that led him to tell us that we could have an informed discussion when the reports were put in front of us? Has something changed? Why does the Minister still refuse to give us the information? I refer him to two or three parliamentary questions requesting the information but to no avail. When will he give us the crucial information? Such information will allow us to do our job and scrutinise his actions as a Minister.

I have questions on the report and I will ask them later if I have time.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

The publication of these two reports allows Members to scrutinise much of the work that has happened in this area because they contain a huge amount of new information.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

That was not my question.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I will come to the Deputy's question. The last point that he made is completely unacceptable in light of the fact that I sought the two reports, I have published them and I am here to discuss them, never mind the fact that he wanted us to meet as a committee before the reports were published and accused of me of not making myself available to meet the committee. I was quite clear that we should come in and debate the reports that were being prepared for us.

In terms of the March figures, and I have said this before, we are focusing on the wrong issue and these reports tell us why. The problem that we face is not just about what is the number, what is the list or its length. We are talking about people with very complex needs who are, potentially, going to be trapped in emergency accommodation unless we segregate people and understand their pathway to sustainable accommodation, be it in terms of figuring out their rights or their long-term support needs.

Deputy Ó Broin has called this matter an alleged miscategorisation but he accepted that there had been a miscategorisation when we addressed this matter in the Dáil.

In terms of the two reports, the inter-agency report was never going to cover this matter. My Department and the local authorities are still doing a piece of work because it is a detailed piece of work and I want it to be accurate. A survey is being conducted, by each of the local authorities, with the aim of giving us true information on the different categories, the use of section 10 and answers to all of our questions. I had hoped that the work would be completed in time for the publication of this report.

In terms of the two reports, the inter-agency was never going to cover this matter. My Department is conducting a detailed piece of work, which I want to be accurate, along with the local authorities. A survey is being conducted and I have asked each of the local authorities to provide us with true information about the different categories, the use of section 10 and answers to all of our questions. I hoped the work would be completed in time for the publication of this report.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Is there a third report?

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

No. A survey is being carried on behalf of the executive committee.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Is it a separate report that has nothing to do with the two reports that the Minister told us about in two press releases and at our last committee meeting?

Chairman

I ask the Deputy to allow the Minister to finish, without interruption.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I ask Deputy Ó Broin to allow me to finish my point.

Chairman

Deputy Ó Broin will have loads of time to come back in later as ten minutes have been divided up between the two Deputies.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I hoped that this piece of work would be finished in time to roll into the DRHE report but it was not. We had already agreed to the meeting, I did not want to delay same and so we are here to discuss two reports. The work on the recategorisation or the miscategorisation error that occurred is continuing. It will be completed, it will be made public and we can discuss it then.

The Deputy has accepted that there was a miscategorisation. He is focusing on the wrong area.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The committee agreed to deal with the miscategorisation. It was not just me who wanted it to happen. I am more than happy to discuss the reports because there are many interesting things to say about them, but they are not what the invitation to attend the meeting was related to. The Minister has been invited in the first instance to help us to get to the bottom of this matter. If he is right when he says all 875 adults and children have been erroneously miscategorised, he should give us the information to enable us to make a decision on it. The difficulty is two months have passed since the initial decision was made. It is clear that the Department has information on the 875 individuals. Given that we have been asking for this information for two months, I do not understand why the Minister will not share it. If he believes he can convince the committee that miscategorisation has happened, he should do so. I have expressed my views on the matter. I have gone to each of the local authorities that have been affected by it and was able to identify 20 households that I think have been miscategorised. All of the information I have on the others involved who comprise the overwhelming majority of the 874 adults and children in question suggests they were not miscategorised. They were homeless at the time when they were removed from the figures. We cannot make progress because the Minister will not share the information with us. I am happy to talk about the other stuff as I am not focused solely on miscategorisation. If the Minister continues to refuse to give the committee the information it has requested, he will prevent us from doing our work in scrutinising his role as Minister. That is disrespectful to the committee. He told us that the reports would contain this information, but now he is telling us that it is not ready. It was ready enough to take homeless families off the homeless lists in March and April. Why is he not sharing the information with us?

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

The Deputy is completely misconstruing my position and I have to wonder what his motivation is in doing so. Why is he continuing to turn his focus and attention on me? We are trying to solve a serious problem that our society is facing. I have been very clear on what we have been trying to do. I ask the Deputy not to pretend that if I had said to the committee that I was not ready, he would not have attacked me for not coming here. The reports were ready and I brought them to the Cabinet. I published them immediately and came to the committee. The miscategorisation error requires further work, which is ongoing. I want to come to the committee with a complete picture. The Deputy has gone to various local authorities and spoken to different people. He has made speculative assumptions and included piecemeal things. He has been attempting to undermine what is going on. As the Minister in the Department, I have a responsibility to bring factual information to the committee. If I am to be able to do so, I must have all of the information. When I have the complete picture, I will not hesitate to provide the information for the committee.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Before I move on to the two reports, I have to say the Minister's response is deeply unsatisfactory. We are confused because he will not give us the information he has available. One of my concerns about the reports is that we all know that the reluctance to engage with the HAP scheme is an issue. There is nothing new in the reports and there are no data to substantiate them. I am very concerned by the line in the inter-agency report that refers to the withdrawal of emergency accommodation from people on the basis of their difficulties with the HAP scheme. The reports are silent on the solutions to the crucial problems with the HAP scheme. If a family moves to the HAP scheme, the length of time they will have to wait before they get a council house is extended and, in many cases, greatly extended. There is a six-year wait on South Dublin County Council's transfer list. There is a genuine fear of insecurity in the private rental sector. There is a lot of misreporting or misinformation in the media today about people refusing the housing assistance payment, even though that interpretation is not supported by the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive report. Ms Eileen Gleeson said this morning that there was a degree of nervousness in that regard. The solution is to do what South Dublin County Council is doing which is not even mentioned in either report. It involves allowing people in receipt of the housing assistance payment to continue to access the mainstream choice-based letting list on the same basis they have done so previously. This ensures they are not disadvantaged in any way by moving to the HAP scheme. I would like to know why this option to solve the problem is not mentioned in either of the reports.

I do not like to be critical of those who produce these reports, but I have a difficulty with the wording used in one section of a recent report which claimed, "It can be assumed that a significant percentage of the Non-EU individuals may not have entitlement to housing support". I do not think that can be assumed. Either there are data to show that non-Irish families do not have an entitlement to a housing needs assessment, or there are not. The idea that it "can be assumed" out a very dangerous signal. Perhaps there are data to back it up. If there are, I would like the Minister to share them with us.

It would be an enormous mistake to move away from the monthly reports. I am one of the few who spend a great deal of time looking at the quarterly reports. They are very good, but the problem is that they receive virtually no media coverage. It takes approximately a day and a half to try to interpret them because they are complex and difficult to understand. The value of the monthly reports - it is different - is that they provide a clear monthly indicator of whether things are getting better or worse, almost like a canary in a coal mine. I understand the reasons for the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive's proposal to move to quarterly reporting. Although I disagree with these reasons, I respect them. If the Minister moves to quarterly reporting, rightly or wrongly, it will give people the impression that he is looking to conceal the month on month fluctuations in the homeless figures at a time when they are potentially getting worse. It would be an enormous mistake to hide them in a much bigger and more turgid quarterly report.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I thank the Deputy for his questions. It is not true to say there is nothing new in the reports.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

There is nothing new in them about the HAP scheme. Their contents in that respect are known to us all already.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I disagree. There is important information in the reports. They do not focus exclusively on the HAP scheme, although there are some important things coming out of them on it. There is some very good and detailed information in them. Those involved spent a lot of time in putting them together to try to give the public a clear picture on some of the challenges we faced.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

There are no data to support the claims being made in respect of the HAP scheme.

Chairman

If the Deputy wants answers, the Minister has one minute left in which to provide them.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I did not write the reports. They were written by experts who work on the front line. If the Deputy wants to challenge their credibility, that is a completely separate conversation. It would be completely out of line to do so. The line in the inter-agency report that has been mentioned has been misinterpreted. I do not know why that has occurred. The report was produced independently of me. It is clear that the relevant part of the report states we need to look at how we can improve the HAP scheme and when we have done so, we will need to go back and see whether there is still an issue with people moving into the private rental sector. That is how I read the line in question. When I spoke about this yesterday, I made it clear that no one was talking about a threat to remove emergency support from people who were facing this crisis in their lives. That would not solve any problem; rather, it would make things far worse for them, which is not the business we are in.

The Deputy asked about the nervousness with regard to the HAP scheme. I think a line in one of the reports suggests this nervousness relates more to the concept of the HAP scheme, which is an indication that changes need to be made. If someone is electing to move into emergency accommodation, rather than a private rented home, there is a flaw in the system. What is unfortunate is that people are becoming trapped in emergency accommodation because they are developing a fear of moving into the private rental sector. We have to address such issues. Some potential solutions are mentioned in the reports, but they do not cover all of the ideas. That is why I am hoping to hear from the committee other recommendations and ideas that could be considered as we move forward in addressing this challenge.

Reference has been made to non-Irish-----

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The sectoral solution introduced in Dublin city is working very well. I thought it would have been included in the report. It is a good solution and I think it should be-----

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I did not write the report. It is good that we are having this engagement because it allows the Deputy to put such suggestions on the table.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Is it not odd that something which has been in practice for one year in one of the four Dublin local authorities is not mentioned in the report?

Chairman

Many members have indicated that they want to speak. I ask the Minister to stick to what Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked initially. The Deputy will have another opportunity to come in later.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

The reports contain various useful bits of information and a number of good recommendations. If the Deputy believes they do not cover everything, that is exactly why we are having this engagement. It is for the same reason I will be having an engagement with the local authorities at the next housing summit.

When there was some talk about non-EU nationals a few months ago, some unhelpful quotes appeared in certain newspapers. The fear is someone might be trapped in emergency accommodation because we have been unable to assess appropriately what his or her status is and whether he or she is in the right type of accommodation. It depends on the person's status, whether he or she is seeking asylum, whether there are other complications in his or her past and how he or she came here. Our first response must always be one of compassion and care. It must involve getting such a person into the system, looking after him or her and giving him or her support immediately. We can then try to find a sustainable path for him or her. That is on what we want to focus as we follow up on the inter-agency report and its recommendations. I have had a number of engagements with the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Charles Flanagan, on how we will work together to make sure we can do this. This is not just about people who are non-Irish or non-EU nationals. It also relates to protocols for the release of prisoners, etc. If there is a risk people who are coming out of prison might move into homelessness immediately, we need to look at how we can prevent that from happening.

The monthly reporting is not clear. When I receive this form of information in my office every month, I find when I start to ask questions that matters are not clear because the details for which I am looking have not been compiled. The month on month data are not useful in understanding trends or other things - one month we will see one number up and another down. We saw when the miscategorisation issue arose that the numbers were not necessarily the right ones. Some local authorities may have been too hasty in reporting back to the regional executive which then reports to us. We have to be careful what we are reporting is accurate. The Deputy is worried about the impression I might give if we were to move to quarterly reporting. He is concerned I might not want to talk about the numbers. I have no doubt that this is the impression he will want to give.

Chairman

Senator Boyhan is next.

Senator Victor Boyhan

I feel that I should be in the Seanad voting against the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport's Judicial Appointments Bill but I will not do so. I welcome the Minister, Ms Hurley and Mr. Kelly to this meeting. The reports are very interesting although I have not read them in great detail. There is a lot of meat in them and a lot to glean and learn from them. However, it is very disappointing to see that there are still substantial numbers of people in emergency accommodation in hotels. The Minister's predecessor, Deputy Coveney, was exceptionally ambitious and I always admire a brave politician who sets down statistics, figures and objectives to achieve but it is exceptionally disappointing to see the number of people who are going back to hotel rooms at night and calling them home. It is really unacceptable and I do not know how the Minister and his officials can stand over it. I do not understand why it is taking so long to solve this problem. That was one the key priorities of the previous Minister. If one looks at all of the press releases that have come from the Department and all of the speeches we have heard in these Houses, the main point was that we would get people and families out of hotels. While it is true, as Deputy Boyd Barrett pointed out, that a hotel room is preferable to nothing, this was one of the key objectives of the Government and it has not been achieved. We must keep the focus on this issue.

According to the homelessness reports for April, there were 5,963 adults in emergency accommodation, comprising 1,712 families with 3,689 dependants. I accept what the Minister has said about many of those individuals having complex needs but we must face the challenge and address their needs. A number of issues are highlighted in the reports but we must not lose sight of the fact that the figure itself is huge. Where can we find comfort in terms of how we can cut those figures? They are staggering and must be addressed. We have a housing crisis and a change in Minister is not going to change that situation. We have to work together, pool our resources and knowledge and support those providing front-line services who are trying to deliver. I do not doubt the motives of anyone in here. Everyone in here, of all parties and none, is absolutely committed to addressing the homelessness issue, as well as the problems with regard to social and affordable housing. In reality, there are lots of people who would like to purchase a house but cannot afford to do so. They are also on our social housing lists.

I am aware that the Department wrote to the local authorities earlier this year seeking details on accommodation categories being recorded for the individuals and families in emergency accommodation in their areas. The Minister has said that the work is ongoing and that the survey being conducted is not yet complete. It would be very helpful for this committee to get a copy of that survey when it is complete. We need to see the data from the Department's survey as well as the feedback from local authorities. That will help us to understand better the complexities of the problem and the challenges that lie ahead. That information is critical and I would ask that the correspondence and feedback from the survey be forwarded to the committee as soon as it becomes available.

The Minister will be appointing a new chairman to the board of the National Oversight and Audit Committee, NOAC, in the coming weeks. That organisation has done a lot of oversight work on figures and statistics relating to the local authorities but it could do a lot more if it had more resources. Given that a new chairman will be appointed soon, perhaps now is the time to look at that. Would there be value in having an oversight body such as NOAC to set certain criteria, examine the data set and scrutinise the figures in detail prior to them being published? An awful lot of the debate now is centring on statistics and figures rather than on the delivery of homes for people. So much of the debate in the Dáil, Seanad and at this committee has focused on the figures, the length of time people have been waiting and so forth. Too much expertise and knowledge is being tied up in this area. We need to use the resources we have to focus on providing homes for people because that is the bottom line. I have no hang up about who owns those homes or who has built them; I just want homes for people. I would ask the Minister to examine whether there is a role for NOAC in examining and validating the figures. The figures must be credible and independently validated in order for people to believe them. I await the Minister's reply to that question and would ask again that the aforementioned survey results be forwarded to this committee as soon as it is complete. I ask for a report on the data requested by the Minister from the local authorities as soon as possible.

Chairman

Senators Boyhan and Murnane O'Connor will have to leave at around 6 p.m. so I will allow the latter to speak now before calling on the Minister to respond.

Senator Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

I thank the Chairman. The Short-term Lettings Bill is due to be debated in the Seanad from 6 p.m. onwards and both myself and Senator Boyhan are scheduled to speak on what is important legislation. We have all read the reports and money does not seem to be an issue. How many local authorities hold homeless clinics every week? How many local authorities have staff working at weekends to deal with emergencies? What criteria are used to determine who is accommodated in bed and breakfast premises and family hubs? Who is prioritised? According to the reports, approximately 500 people have been identified as requiring accommodation on medical grounds. The Minister has said that some of these will not need emergency housing and will have to wait their turn. I am highlighting this issue because there is no joined up thinking between the HSE, the local authorities and the Departments of Housing, Planning and Local Government and Employment Affairs and Social Protection. They are all interconnected and until that is sorted, this crisis will not be over. One agency does not know what another is doing. If one is trying to help a homeless person and one goes to one Department or agency, one will be told that it is not within its remit and that one should go elsewhere. That is not right. In a housing crisis, every Department and agency is important and we need to see joined up thinking. That lack of such thinking is the reason the system is failing.

I wish to raise the HAP scheme with the Minister because it affects so many people, particularly in rural areas. Unless major changes are made to the HAP scheme, we will end up with more homeless people in rural areas because rents are increasing in all of the areas that have not been designated as rent pressure zones. More and more people are coming to my office who will become homeless shortly. The homelessness crisis is causing many people to fall through the net.

The Department is holding a summit involving all of the local authorities shortly. The Minister needs to sit down with them and stress the importance of joined up thinking. I know of areas where no homeless clinics are held and I know of local authority areas that have no emergency staff available at weekends. What is happening at local authority level? The local authorities are key because they are at the coal face. They are also the source of the Minister's figures. I believe that every local authority should have a homeless clinic but that is not the case at present. I urge the Minister to obtain the relevant information from the local authorities in the coming weeks so that this committee can determine what exactly is happening in each local authority area. The Minister has started to move on quite an amount of legislation, for which he must be given credit. Furthermore, in my own area in Carlow, the local authority is buying houses and the Department is definitely providing funding for the building and purchasing of homes. Progress is being made, albeit slowly. Homelessness is still a major issue but if the funding is provided and the local authorities address the issues involved, it will be sorted.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I thank the Senators for their questions. I absolutely agree with Senator Boyhan that the numbers in hotels are very disappointing. It is unacceptable. Putting a family in a hotel is not the appropriate first response and that is why we have moved to the hubs programme. It is important to have targets in order to drive policy but when it comes to families, the issues are far more complex than people might have realised initially. The hub programme has been far more successful in terms of being able to move people on into sustainable accommodation. We have 500 family hub spaces at the moment, with another 400 coming on stream in the next six to eight months. If one compares the figure for people in hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation today with a year ago, it is the same which makes people think nothing has happened.

More than 2,000 families exited hotels, the majority of them into homes rather than hubs. Exits have continued but so, too, have presentations and so we continue to have to accommodate people in hotels. We hope to get to the point in the coming months where this will no longer be the case for new presentations. We will continue to work with the families in hotels and bed and breakfasts to get them into sustainable homes.

Reference was made to the homelessness report for April and children. We will debate that report in the Dáil next week. As part of the inter-agency group work, along with my officials I have been working with the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, to ensure appropriate supports are in place for children and we keep them to the fore as we design policy responses. We take great care in looking after families. Last month, the number of families was down but the number of dependants was up because a small number of families presented with more children. We continue to face challenges finding suitable accommodation for larger families in the social housing stock and in other areas.

On the categorisation survey, when I have that information I will move quickly to publish it and then we can have a debate on it. On the appointment of a chairperson for the National Oversight and Audit Committee, NOAC, if the person selected accepts the appointment, the appointment will be made soon. This person, whom I know, knows a lot about the local authority system and has many ambitions in terms of reform of the system. Senator Boyhan spoke about a layer of oversight by NOAC. I am open to considering the proposal. It has been suggested to me that the work to be done around homeless figures should be conducted by the Central Statistics Office, CSO. In opening up that possibility, I do not want to in any way undermine the work being done by the Department and the local authorities. As evidenced by the CSO's work on the completions data, it has better data sets and bigger teams and we need to explore if it might be able to do a piece of work on this area.

Senator Murnane O'Connor raised a number of questions but she has left the meeting. Should I wait until she comes back to answer them?

Chairman

No. She will probably read the transcript of the meeting.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

On the number of staff who have been sanctioned by the Department in the last number of years to help in address of the housing issue, the allocation of housing resources within the local authorities is a matter for the local authorities. The Senator also mentioned local authority homeless clinics. If a need for them is identified, we will put funding in place for them. In terms of emergency and weekend operations, I can only speak to my own experience with local authorities. The local authorities are represented on the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, DRHE, and while there have been very unfortunate situations where a person in emergency accommodation or sleeping rough has died the executive does interact with people late into the night, early in the morning and at weekends.

On the order of priority in terms of exiting hubs, it depends on the needs and circumstances of the family, including size, the location of choice and so on. The local authority works closely with the hub operators to ensure there are no unnecessary delays for families exiting hubs. The data indicates that large families exist hubs in less than six months. Senator Murnane O Connor also spoke about long-term health needs. We know that approximately 500 people might not ever be able to exist in a tenancy without supports. The Senator also referenced a lack of joined up thinking. There is a lot of joined up thinking between Departments and agencies but on an ad hoc rather than formalised basis. Some hospitals and NGOs are working together on issues such as hospital exits. I recognise that more needs to be done and that is why I appointed the inter-agency group last September after the first housing summit. The agency will continue its work. It will continue to produce reports and help my Department work with other Departments to ensure that as a Government we are meeting the needs of all of the people in emergency accommodation. In terms of my Department, I will ensure that it is not remiss in its responsibilities to work with the group and other colleagues in government to get the job done.

Presentations from the private rental sector accounted for almost one in two families coming into emergency accommodation. In some cases, the survey was not completed so sufficient data was not captured. This points to the need for more work in terms of data collection. In cases where a reason for homelessness was given, it was properties being sold. We need to drill down into the numbers in the cases where no reason was given and to collate data over a longer period of time to properly understand what is happening in the private rental sector. While we continue to face a shortage in housing we will continue to face a problem in the rental sector, particularly as rents rise. It is worth noting that in the last two quarters there has been a dramatic deceleration in quarterly increases in rent, which is to be welcomed. In the fourth quarter of last year, rents decreased by 1.1% and by 1% in the first quarter of this year. We will have to continue to put in place protections for renters as we bring on new supply. We also need to develop a more mature rental sector in this country.

Chairman

I thank the Minister.

Deputy Mick Barry

I want to address two issues. First, the removal of 875 people from the official homelessness statistics and, second, issues related to the housing assistance payment. At the end of April, when the official homelessness statistics for the month of March were produced 875 people had been removed from the housing waiting lists. According to the Department, they had been "reclassified". Others used different language such as fiddling the figures, cooking the books and doctoring the statistics. They understood that 10,000 people officially on the homeless list was politically sensitive and they sensed that the figures were kept below that number by any means necessary. The Minister quickly went to bat and denied that was the case. In making his defence, he made great play of the fact that two reports had been commissioned and he said that when those two reports were brought before the housing committee and society the true position would become clear. We now have those two reports and, to be honest, they do not leave anyone any the wiser as to the reason 875 people have been taken off the homeless list.

When the Minister was challenged about this today he said that there is a third report and it will clarify the situation but he has not told us when that report will be produced. Will it be produced before the Dáil adjourns for the summer recess in mid-July? Will the Minister be out-the-gap at that point such that we will not have to discuss these issues until September? No information has been presented in terms of timescale.

Eight weeks on from these reclassifications the silence in terms of a detailed forensic breakdown as to why in the opinion of the Minister and the Department each of those reclassifications was justified is damning. The lack of evidence is damning. People will draw their own conclusions. There has not been total silence, however. The assistant CEO of Dublin City Council, Mr. Brendan Kenny, said on "Morning Ireland" on 31 May that Dublin City Council had carried out a reclassification of more than 200 people and that these were people not living in emergency accommodation. Reference was made to 65 families who were in private rented apartments. Under questioning, Mr. Kenny stated that the more than 200 people concerned were not covered by any lease, were not in accommodation which was in a legal sense secure or permanent and that all or the vast bulk of them were being covered under section 10 funding, which as we know is funding for accommodation for homeless persons. The evidence about the fiddling of the figures continues to stack up while the evidence we were promised to dismantle that argument has not been presented.

On the housing assistance payment, HAP, under the rent supplement scheme a person in receipt of rent supplement remained on the housing waiting list, which is the fundamental difference between the rent supplement scheme and HAP. There are other differences as well. It is understandable why a woman who heads a family that has been ten or 12 years on the housing waiting list would be hesitant about moving from emergency accommodation to HAP accommodation.

That person may have had the experience of going into emergency accommodation from the private rental sector in the first place. In fact, the statistics from the DRHE report show it is the main reason people enter emergency accommodation. If the Minister wants to end the situation whereby families in emergency accommodation are wary of offers of HAP accommodation, I can give him a simple solution. Let them accept the HAP offer and stay on the housing list at the same time, which is the South Dublin County Council solution. The Minister will not do that because the whole point of HAP for him and the Government is twofold, that is, to artificially reduce housing waiting lists and privatise social housing provision.

The statistics in the DRHE report on the reasons people go into emergency accommodation are very powerful. Family circumstance is a major reason, but it is not the only reason. People come from the private rented sector for reasons such as properties being sold, repairs, renovations and so on. If we want to stem the rise of homelessness and people being forced into emergency accommodation, is a simple solution not to bring in legislation to ban economic evictions?

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I thank Deputy Barry for his questions and the points he made. On the recategorisation issue, some people are obsessed with the wrong subject matter. It is not about the numbers and the list, rather about the solutions. Having 10,000 families and people in emergency accommodation, such as hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation, is not politically sensitive for me. I find it morally abhorrent. I would feel the same about 9,000, 6,000, 5,000 or 4,000 individuals and families living in emergency accommodation. The charges the Deputy has laid against me are very unfair, but let us forget that for a moment. Let us talk about solutions. The 10,000 families and individuals affected do not tell us anything that 9,500 would not be able to tell us, namely that we have a crisis and want to find homes for people.

The two reports we have give us clarity around the different challenges we face and the different categories of people who are in emergency accommodation. The solution is not as straightforward as building houses or finding homes for people to move into. From reading the two reports, it is clear the situation is more complex than that. People have long-term support needs, are unsure about their status or need other care and supports which they feel they will not get in the private market. I understand that.

The categorisation survey will explain how each of the categories in the report is being cared for and in what kind of accommodation. There is no third report. The survey was meant to be part of the DRHE report, but it was not finished in time and I did not want to delay the DRHE report because I wanted to publish it before the committee sessions, something I was quite clear about. I hoped it would be completed. In terms of the timescale, it is almost complete and we will have it in the few weeks. The Deputy may regard the recess as involving him being out of the gap but the Government continues to work every week even when the Dáil is not sitting. I will continue to work on these challenges on behalf of the Government and people I represent in government to try to solve these problems.

As I said, recategorisation is not the opinion of my Department. It was agreed between local authorities and my Department when we discovered what was happening around section 10 funding. The Deputy is misrepresenting Brendan Kenny. Section 10 funding is for emergency accommodation, but as I said at the beginning of the year at the second housing summit prevention and being innovative are key. Section 10 funding has been used to put people into homes where they are at no risk of falling into emergency accommodation or being tenanted. They have their own front doors and keys and will be safe and secure.

The Deputy is focusing on the wrong issue. There is no evidence on his side that anything inappropriate has happened, other than us trying to get a better and truer picture of the people we need to help so we know how to help them. It has been admitted by Sinn Féin that a recategorisation error occurred. Around 1,000 people have been able to use the transfer list since the introduction of HAP. It has been rolled out in Dublin for a year, and many people have moved from HAP into secure social housing. We want to do more than that. The main reason people have come from the private rental sector, as outlined in the report, was the sale of a house. That speaks to another of my concerns, namely rental properties exiting the rental sector and being lost to renters, something which will only decrease the supply of rental accommodation. Some of the current proposals would see a further flight of landlords from the market. We need to encourage more landlords into the market. It is a separate area, but all of these things are related.

The report also tells us that the majority of people who came out of the private rental sector did not give a reason as to why. We need to drill into those figures. Again, it speaks to the need for better and more detailed reporting which, if we want it to be accurate, will take time.

Deputy Mick Barry

On a specific question-----

Chairman

If it is ten seconds because you are over your time.

Deputy Mick Barry

It will be even less. The survey is almost complete and will be ready in a few weeks. Can the Minister be more precise about that? Can we have it by the end of June? Will we have it before the Dáil adjourns?

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

A lot of people are doing a lot of work to put this together. They understand its importance. It is not as simple as the Deputy thinks it might be. People have spent some time on this and have communicated with all local authorities. We are starting to get returns which we want to collate in order to provide an accurate picture because we know that certain people will do their best to undermine this process for their own political reasons.

Deputy Mick Barry

When will we have it?

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I will have it when I have it. When I have it, I will get it to the committee as quickly as possible.

Deputy Pat Casey

I thank the Minister for all of the information he has supplied us with in the past 24 hours. There is a lot of detail to get through. I will start with homelessness. I want to acknowledge the work that has been done in the area. The Minister said more than 2,080 families have been taken out of emergency accommodation and now have secure tenure, something which we must acknowledge. I understand it is a 50% increase on what was achieved in the previous year. The most frustrating thing from everybody's point of view is that the 2,080 families who have been housed have been replaced by another 2,080 families. We seem to be going around in circles in regard to the homelessness figures. At times there is too much information.

The Minister's statement concerned me with regard to why people are becoming homeless. He said the report examined the reasons families become homeless, with the vast bulk of presentations relating to family circumstances or issues with private rental accommodation. I do not know for how many years there has been a housing crisis. I am very disappointed that the Minister said that the data collected in regard to the presentations arising from issues with private rental accommodation is not detailed enough. In fairness, we are five or six years into a homelessness crisis and still do not have the correct information to enable us to make the right decision, which is disappointing.

Everybody has spoken about the quarterly and monthly figures. I will not get into the details. We have all been used to monthly figures and a move away from them could cause certain ramifications which would be unnecessary and would take away the focus from the real issues in respect of homelessness.

The Minister might give the committee some more information on one matter. He said new presentations in respect of homelessness will not be going into hotels. Can he expand on that statement? Regrettably, we are still using hotels too much.

Everybody has spoken about HAP. It is time to get rid of the HAP transfer list and put everybody on the one list. I know of constituents who are genuinely afraid to go on to HAP because of their fear that they will not be considered for the social housing allocation. There is genuine concern about that. There are complications in moving from one local authority area to another, whether one is in the HAP scheme or on the general council housing list. If I want to move from Dublin to Wicklow I will start all over again. Local authority synergies need to be expanded so that people have more options than just the local authority area in which they are living and can transfer credits they have built up to another area.

It is disappointing that another glaring thing that came out of the report was just left there on its own. There was a 19% refusal rate for offers of permanent social housing and no detail was given as to why there were refusals. We have spoken about how choice-based letting seems to be much more successful than the general allocation. I think that statement is on page 8 of the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, DRHE, report. It is left there in bold and it does not get into the detail of why. I think we need to get a much better understanding of the reasons people are refusing permanent accommodation. In another section, I think the witnesses refer to where 595 offers of permanent social housing were made to homeless people in 2017. I will not say that people are gaming the systems because we have had that debate, but that seems quite high relative to the number of people who are on the homeless list. Some 595 people were offered permanent solutions, yet there are only approximately 3,500 adults on the list in Dublin. If I was a gambling man, I would have a better chance on the homeless list than I would on the housing list. We need to clarify exactly what is happening with that.

Another issue, which I think the Minister, Deputy Murphy, mentioned, relates to non-nationals. The DRHE also received a small number of referrals of non-Irish national families living in extremely overcrowded, substandard accommodation. Do we have any knowledge of the breadth of that or the depth of what is happening with non-nationals? It refers only to a small number of referrals and we all know that it is much bigger than what is being referred to here.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I thank the Deputy for his questions and for acknowledging the hard work that has happened over the last year or more. I talk a lot with the front-line staff and know that people can sometimes feel that nothing is happening. A huge amount of work is going on and it is important to acknowledge that, and that we need to do more, and always recognise that the work does not stop. Presentations continue but we are not going in circles. The hub programme and the use of housing assistance payment, HAP, show that. People spend less time in emergency accommodation if they are in a hub and get out of emergency accommodation quicker if they are going into a HAP tenancy. The vast majority of HAP tenancies have been successful. We are making progress. The Dublin authorities believe that we are beginning to see stabilisation of presentations in Dublin but one cannot tell that month to month, so there needs to be a longer reporting period. I hope that is the case. We will continue to put in solutions that we think are working, including new solutions that are necessary based on these reports.

The Deputy is right that the data in these reports are not detailed enough, even though much work was put into them. It is interesting that the recommendation was originally for quarterly reporting of our homeless numbers, approximately four years ago, when the Department and others were looking at this. It was decided to go with monthly reporting instead. The scale of the challenge was not as large or complex then because it did not have the different categories of people with different and specific needs. The amount of work that had to go into monthly reporting was not anticipated as being so great with regard to trying to understand the trends. Where a family presents as homeless, ideally, the first measure is preventative because we have caught them early enough and can find accommodation for them, either through floating HAP stock, through HAP, or through a social housing home. Until we get to that point, we want the hub to be the first response so that, when a family presents, no one goes anywhere near a hotel. That is what we want to get to and why we will have 400 more family hub spaces coming online in the next six to eight months. That is why we are going to move to a floating HAP stock. The idea is that, rather than seeing this movement in and out of hotels, as we saw in the course of last year, we are then just talking about the numbers in hotels reducing until they are gone. That is the aim of the policies, to get the best supports in place for people who are either at risk of homelessness or find themselves in emergency accommodation.

I am convinced that there is more that can be done with the transfer lists so that HAP can continue to work to meet people's housing needs and not shutting off the prospect of moving into a permanent social housing home. Inter-authority movement will be addressed because it needs to be addressed. That is clear from this report. There is no information on why people were refusing the offer of a permanent home in their area of choice. We need more information on that. We have to be very sensitive when we talk about these things, in trying not to paint everyone with the same brush. There are challenges there. We hear anecdotes about refusals. We all hear them from local authorities, as politicians. I have to work based on evidence, not anecdotes. With regard to the non-nationals figure, we made a call around Storm Emma for people to come into emergency accommodation because if they did not, they could potentially die due to the storm. As a result, people who were not sleeping rough in the streets or in emergency accommodation but were squatting or doing something else came into our emergency accommodation. As they came in, we realised that there was a greater problem with non-EU nationals than we had realised before. The difficulty with understanding why people are there, how they came to be there and what is the pathway is that there are issues around language, some of the staff on the front line not being trained in some of the justice issues that need to be addressed, and the reluctance of some, for whatever reason, to be as forthcoming as they might be. These are challenges that we will address with the Department of Justice and Equality to make sure that the best care is given, that people understand what their rights are, and how we get them into the appropriate pathway, out of emergency accommodation, following those engagements that we have. Some of the people on the front line are maybe not trained to deal with the large number of presentations of non-EU nationals that we saw on the back of Storm Emma.

Deputy Pat Casey

I think the DRHE has requested clarification of the definition of homelessness. Will the Minister comment on that?

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

The definition that we currently work off is from the 1988 Act. There are two criteria there. It puts it to the local authority to interpret those criteria and make a decision itself. An interesting thing from a bureaucratic point of view is that someone has to be declared as homeless before he or she can get supports that would prevent him or her from becoming homeless. That person might not be homeless at all. One has to assess people and declare them as homeless before one can give them homeless supports. They may never go into emergency accommodation or ever not have a roof over their heads. We have to look at some of these issues again to see if there is terminology or a bureaucratic mechanism that is failing us with regard to being able to more quickly help people and get a proper understanding. Although I have not had a chance to talk to the DRHE about the report yet, it might also be talking about the people who have long-term health and support needs who will never be able to sustain an independent tenancy who are currently, for whatever reason, such as section 10 funding, declared as homeless. Is that the right thing to do? It might also be a request for further definition under the Acts. I will discuss this with the DRHE and at the housing summit. Our first priority is to support people. Some of these issues with definitions and such are not at the top of the agenda but need to be addressed in time.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

I thank Deputy Ellis for allowing me to go ahead of him. I have to run. I apologise in advance since I have to speak elsewhere in about six minutes. I might not be able to stay for the Minister's response but I will read the transcript. The first question I was asked to bring up with the Minister is about stopping people getting evicted, which would stop people currently going into emergency accommodation from going in. As we know, the majority of those going in come from the private rental sector. A specific question I was asked to ask the Minister is where the regulations are for rental properties in receivership. It was promised in Rebuilding Ireland and has not come through yet. Buy-to-let properties being taken over by receivers is an example of where people are being evicted and they should not have to be. That is a specific question. As Deputy Barry said, why does the Minister not just freeze evictions for now? We could stop the flow.

I do not believe in HAP. It is a bad policy. It is effectively privatisation of social housing. All that said, insofar as the Minister is committed to it, as I mentioned to Ms Mary Hurley earlier on, he needs to instruct the DRHE or local authorities, if people manage to find a place that will accept HAP which is over the limit, to go out of their way not to say no and then drive them into homelessness.

I will read this message which I got today:

Unfortunately, due to the [bleeping] HAP rules, we are not able to rent our home in Enniskerry, which we found, as we are only able to get €1,500 from Wicklow while it is €1,950 in Dublin, [which is just over the border] so on Friday we are moving into a hotel in Bray, which is going to cost them [the council] €4,930 a month. Wouldn't it be easier to let me have the Dublin rate? I am emailing Eoghan Murphy and our local TD Simon Harris as a matter of urgency. It took me three months to find this house in Enniskerry. There is nothing in north Wicklow under €2k and Dublin is even higher. I am so upset, angry and scared. My daughter is distraught. She was all set to move into the new place...

We have to do something about examples like that. The decision being made not to give the uplift to the Dublin rate, which is just a few miles over the border, means we are going to pay a lot more and that woman is going to be in a hotel in Bray. This stuff has to change.

The critical point I want to make to the Minister is this. He said he has only been in the job for the last two years, and so on and so forth. There is a problem with HAP and we have this controversy about why people will not accept HAP tenancies, although I somewhat question that. It is more the case that people are being told that a property has been advertised or that a landlord accepts HAP, and they are told to find the property themselves, although families with children find it very difficult to do that. The reason they do not want this is that HAP is not social housing in the way a council house is. Does the Minister not think it is about time to admit they are right in saying that? He says HAP is working. Can he be honest? A HAP tenancy, which is maybe secure for 12 months and where people can and do get evicted, although the Minister said some HAP tenancies last longer, is not as secure as a council house. Can the Minister admit that is true?

People are right in saying it is not the same as a council house and it should not be treated under legislation as being the same as a council house. The decision to treat it the same as a council house was made in 2011, which is when the legislation was changed. The initial legislation was drafted by Fianna Fáil in 2009 but Fine Gael-Labour commenced it in April 2011. Should the Minister not just admit that it was wrong? Even if he says it is a temporary solution, and I do not think it is a good temporary solution, will he acknowledge it is not a permanent solution and should not be treated as such? People who are on lists for years or in emergency accommodation should not be forced to accept that it is the same as a council house when they know it is not the same as a council house and does not have the same security. If the Minister acknowledged that and allowed people to stay on the list, we would at least be facing reality, the reality that people on housing lists and in emergency accommodation have to live.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I thank Deputy Boyd Barrett for his questions-----

Chairman

Deputy Boyd Barrett has to leave now. I will take Deputy Ellis next so at least the Minister is answering somebody who is present.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

Deputy Boyd Barrett should give them hell in there. Immigration is an important issue as well.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

I will.

Chairman

I call Deputy Dessie Ellis.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

First, I would also like to raise concerns about the homeless figures and people being taken off the list, although Deputy Ó Broin has outlined that and I will not go into it further. It is not right and there are many anomalies within it. There are 9,652 on the homeless list for April, 3,689 of whom are children. The length of time people are homeless, whether in a hotel, a bed and breakfast or a hostel, is getting longer and longer. The Minister said there was a speeding up with regard to the hubs but that is because many people from the hubs are taking HAP tenancies, where and if they can get that. This is one of the big problems.

I have a serious concerns about HAP. I agree with some of the other Deputies in that I am very much opposed to the whole idea of HAP. It is a windfall for many private landlords, particularly given the way it has been introduced. I will give one example. In Hampton Wood in Ballymun, some 130 units were bought up by Ires REIT, a private company, and all of those units are going to HAP. The council has so far taken 50 of these for HAP at almost €1,800 for two-bedroom houses. Let us think about that. What person can afford that sort of money? What about the amount of money the local authority has to put up, notwithstanding that the tenant has to pay a certain amount. It is mad economics. I do not understand why the local authorities could not have bought these units and used them as social housing. I do not understand why we are not proactive enough. Perhaps there is a problem with many of the local authorities in terms of being proactive in this regard. It is clear that companies as big as this one have bought up hundreds of units across the areas.

I have another serious concern. The Minister mentioned there are 763 people in hotels. Given the Pope's visit is coming up, people are going to be pushed out of hotels. Where are they going to go? The Minister said we will produce more hubs. This happens every time there is a major event in that people get thrown from Jack to Jill, and some of them end up couchsurfing or end up in all sorts of messes. It is an indictment of us as a society that this can happen.

Reference was made to people refusing HAP. I can understand that. I know of people who are high on the housing list and who are asked to take up a HAP tenancy. Some of them have to travel from one end of the city to the other, with children. They are taken out of their community and brought into a completely different environment. No one would buy a house in a location where they do not want to go, for starters. I can understand why some people have refused to take up what the Minister calls social housing. I do not consider HAP as social housing and I think it is the wrong definition.

It is mind-boggling. At the end of the day, it is clear that nothing has changed. Since 2011 the number of homeless people has tripled - that is the reality. The Minister is right to say that those who are leaving homelessness go various different ways, whether to HAP, to social housing or otherwise. The problem is they are being replaced. People are desperate because many landlords are making up excuses that they are selling their houses and they are putting people out. That is why there is no change in the figures. Obviously, if we do not build enough social housing, that is going to continue. It is very frustrating.

A member appeared on television in regard to the European Investment Bank and the Minister mentioned he was in negotiations with it. Why is it taking so long? We have been pointing out for years that the European Investment Fund is available. To go back to 2011, when I was housing spokesperson for my party, I was raising this issue. Everything seems to be moving at a pace which means the homeless figures are not changing and our reaction to events is not changing. We need to start building estates and homes in larger quantities, and we need State input to that. Unless we do that, we will be coming back here for years to come. It is very frustrating. I feel nearly lost for words at this stage, given the number of times we have revisited this issue.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I thank the Deputies for their questions. I will address Deputy Boyd Barrett's questions first. The Deputy makes a point about how stopping evictions will prevent people entering emergency accommodation. However, there are two issues here. One is that landlords could leave the rental market, which would result in a loss of supply and people being evicted because there would not be enough properties. Different people would then enter emergency accommodation because new people are looking to rent every week, either because they have returned home or have reached an age where they are starting a new job. If we were to freeze evictions, we would not stop the problem of people entering emergency accommodation. We could, however, strengthen protections for people who are renting, which is what we are doing in the forthcoming legislation. We could also incentivise landlords to sell to other landlords and offer longer leases. That is an issue I am progressing.

The regulations on receivership will be introduced in legislation in the autumn. A working group is addressing that issue and will report to me shortly. Movement of housing assistance payments between local authorities is an issue we need to consider. Based on the contents of the reports, the financial figures cited by Deputy Boyd Barrett do not make sense for the taxpayer. However, we must be careful in this regard. For example, if we were to apply Dublin rates to Wicklow, would rents be pushed up for everyone? I know one family in that very difficult position. Would we then have 49 other families following behind them as a result of rent increases and pressure arising from the decision to apply Dublin rates to Wicklow? We will examine this issue but we need to be careful there are no unintended consequences from any policy change.

To correct Deputy Boyd Barrett, I never said I had only been in the job for two years. I was pointing out that HAP transfer lists and HAP in Dublin had only been in place for a certain period of time, yet a number of the figures we see on the use of the transfer list are positive. The place finder service, which operates in 17 local authorities, is working. Some local authorities have a number of place finders. The housing assistance payment also works. We have evidence that it meets people's housing needs and that it works. However, we know the transfer list can do more and we will see what we can do with that with local authorities.

Deputy Ellis referred to recategorisation. Some people are obsessing about the wrong part of the crisis we face. People in hubs are spending shorter periods in emergency accommodation but a home is better than a hub or emergency accommodation. Renting in the private rental sector is far better for a family or an individual than living in a hub, despite the many supports provided in hubs, some of which are not available in the private rental sector. That said, a home, whether a local authority house or a HAP-supported tenancy in the private sector, is a better place for the development of families and children.

We will need to maintain HAP on its current scale until more homes are built. I would not have made this policy decision but we found ourselves in a position where house building had been outsourced almost exclusively to the private sector. When activity subsequently collapsed, there was no capacity to build social housing homes. That has now changed as a result of a policy decision we made. Project Ireland 2040 provides that from now until at least 2027, local authorities and approved housing bodies will continue to deliver new homes into the stock of social housing homes every year and we will not be reliant on the private rental sector. As we do this, we must rely less on the private rental sector. We see this already in the numbers and ambitions set out in Rebuilding Ireland.

There are a number of different contingencies for which we must plan. Some are immediate, for example, the Pope's visit, while others cannot be foreseen, for example, a natural weather event or some other event in a hotel. There are other potential challenges around Brexit. For all of these reasons, we are putting in place new contingency measures. A number of contingencies are available every night which go unused in the system. We will not force people out of hotels during the Pope's visit but we must make sure there are contingencies in place to ensure accommodation is available in the event that new presentations are made. We continue the practice whereby no individual or family has to sleep outside emergency accommodation on any given night.

The European Investment Bank funds a significant amount of infrastructure in this country but it can do more. We must always be careful when we are dealing with taxpayers' money. We do not want to expose taxpayers to the types of difficulties they experienced following our exposure to the financial crisis and the difficult circumstances in which hundreds of thousands of people found themselves as a result. We must also ensure that when we use European Investment Bank funding to undertake a project, we get it right because if we get it wrong, I guarantee that this source of funding will dry up immediately and the project for which it was used may not be replicated as a result.

A number of large sites will come on stream. The policy is always to achieve mixed tenure because we believe that is the most successful way to build communities.

Deputy Fergus O'Dowd

I apologise for not being here earlier. I was attending a meeting of the Joint Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport that started at 1.30 p.m. and finished at 6.30 p.m. I support the actions taken by the Minister. My view of the housing assistance payment is totally different from the views expressed by the members who spoke previously. HAP replaced rent allowance. A person who was in receipt of rent allowance could not be employed, which meant that people in employment and on low incomes were excluded from rent support and could not get homes.

I came across a case recently involving a lady who happens to be an immigrant with a young family. She works in the health services locally and until recently could not afford to keep her family with the money she was earning. She could not pay her rent because she could not get HAP at the time. Thankfully, she subsequently received HAP, which means she can live in a house, support her family and work. HAP assists everybody but particularly people who had been excluded from rent support previously because they were working. If people did not have the option of renting privately, they would have nowhere to live and would be forced to live in tents or on the side of the road. To those who say HAP is not an option, I would reply that there is no other housing available. Given that people do not have other options, it is nonsensical to claim HAP does not make sense as an option. While many of those who receive HAP cannot choose where they live, they often end up living in a place with which they are very happy. Obviously, it is an advantage for some people to live near their mothers and fathers or other family members. However, that is not necessarily always the case when people move into a council house. There is no discrimination in the allocation of council houses. There is fine housing everywhere. An individual can be lucky to live near family members and have family supports.

There are problems with HAP. I received a strange explanation when I raised a particular issue. If someone living in the wonderful town of Drogheda in County Louth is on HAP, that is fine. If the person finds a house to rent in the part of Drogheda that is in County Meath, the HAP support will be paid by Meath County Council but the person can stay on the Louth County Council housing list. A person can live anywhere in the town of Drogheda and provided he or she comes from County Louth, he or she can stay on the Louth housing list. However, if a person living in County Meath moves to Drogheda and receives HAP from Louth County Council, he or she must come off the Meath County Council housing list, thereby losing the years accumulated on the list. There are issues with boundaries, particularly boundaries that divide a town or community, and it would be worthwhile addressing them. My view is that given the scarcity of housing, people who move to an adjoining county - I appreciate the position in respect of Dublin versus other counties is different - should not lose their right to remain on the housing list in the county of their choice on the basis that the only HAP home they can secure is located in an adjoining county.

I raise another issue related to Drogheda. There are 155 social houses to be allocated in my town before the end of the first quarter of next year. That is a significant number because for years, we did not have any social housing. The position in County Louth and east Meath is changing significantly in this regard and new houses are being built all the time. I visited a private estate a year ago when there were about 80 houses on the site. There are now 250 homes in the estate, which indicates how much development is taking place and how much progress is being made. Addressing these issues takes time and the Minister is using all the powers available to him. I appreciate that we still have a great deal of work to do but I also acknowledge the good work that has been done.

I have raised the next point a number of times. Louth County Council has used compulsory purchase orders to initiate work on vacant and boarded up properties. Families are now living in 60 homes in the county that were boarded up a year ago. What is the story in other parts of the country? I know there is a website detailing vacant homes.

Can we have a progress report on that matter at some stage, if it has not already been provided today? We could add at least 2,000 or 3,000 houses to the stock if what is happening in County Louth happened in the rest of the country.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I thank the Deputy. His comments on the HAP scheme are welcome and I share them. It is a real support and does meet people's needs. The private rental sector is necessary, as I have acknowledged, but it should not be as necessary as it is. These are the legacy issues the Government took up in 2011. We have been working to address them and are working ambitiously on Rebuilding Ireland, under which 50,000 new homes will come into the stock of social housing. The HAP scheme gives choice, autonomy and independence. However, that independence and autonomy are not going to work for everyone. We recognise this, which is why we have a stock of social housing coming. It is also why we are talking about other supports to come with the HAP scheme, as well as the place finder service. New homes are being built and not just by local authorities. We saw the CSO data in terms of the new transparency as a result of a request that I made that they be drilled down into to get us actual completion numbers. It is very good information and we want to build on the numbers again this year, but there are more things we need to do. We have to continue to be proactive in this area. I will continue to host housing summits to drive the local authorities. When it comes to compulsory purchase orders, CPOs, the local authorities have the power, policy, money and resources. We need to make sure they are doing what they should be doing when it comes to CPOs, vacancies and other matters.

We are here to talk about the two reports. That being the case, this is not to move into another area, but when we talk about new measures, when we look at the numbers, yes, we are seeing these increases in supply. However, there is more we could do on the issue of land. There will be further measures announced in that regard in the coming months, as well as the further things we are going to do to protect people who are renting while we put in place the tens of thousands of new homes that are currently being constructed or in the pipeline for construction throughout the country.

Chairman

Before we go to members for a second round, I have a couple of questions.

The definition of "overcrowding" is old and might need to be looked at. Local authorities vary in their definitions of it.

The age profile shocked me. I was shocked to learn that 21% of those who were declaring themselves to be homeless were between the ages of 18 and 24 years. I would love to have more information on what their reasons were and so on. It could be due to a change in family circumstances, etc. A total of 58 families cited family breakdown as a reason. On first reading, one might think that referred to marital or relationship breakdown, but I believe it is actually a breakdown between a parent and a child, with the child declaring himself or herself to be homeless. May we have a little more detail in that regard?

I am delighted that Housing First is successful. It was an initiative under Rebuilding Ireland, with a collaborative approach by voluntary and non-voluntary sectors. It was an initiative by the Peter McVerry Trust and I am delighted it is successful and supporting persons who are very vulnerable.

On refusals, Deputy Fergus O'Dowd alluded to houses coming on stream in Drogheda. In Dún Laoghaire there are 48 properties that will come on stream shortly. In Monkstown there are step-down houses that will come on stream, as well as a number of other smaller projects. While they are all small, together, they are very good. There are 12 houses in Dún Laoghaire and I believe two were refused. Two brand new, award winning houses in the heart of Dún Laoghaire in a preferred location were offered to two people living in emergency accommodation and refused. The Minister might not be able to discuss it here, but I would like to know the reasons. They could be very legitimate, but I would like to know what they are. In the future we might be able to communicate better with the families to have a better understanding of the reasons there are refusals.

There is a real misconception about the HAP scheme. Deputy Fergus O'Dowd was bang on when he said it was an interim measure in finding a long-term solution. Nobody says where we would house people if we did not have it. It is very popular to say it is not working, without having to come up with a solution for how to house people in the interim. We put a roof over their heads. The HAP scheme also enables people to get back into the workforce if they so choose and supports them on various levels. It is a big step from the rental accommodation scheme. We nearly reward people for going back into the workforce and support them in doing so.

I note that the current figure for Exchequer funding for new builds is €1.06 billion, with an additional €77 million from local authorities. In Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown €18 million of local property tax receipts goes into housing provision. I presume that is from where the local authorities' €77 million is coming. People think the local property tax is used for various purposes, but a good portion of it is used for the provision of housing by local authorities. It is good to see that reflected in a breakdown.

The HAP scheme is an interim solution to allow us to get supply up and running. We are seeing all of the indicators moving in the right direction, although there is a lot more to be done. It is very easy to knock something when one does not have to come up with solutions or test the ideas one is bringing forward.

The Minister might not be able to respond to all of my questions today. The position on those in the 18 to 24 age bracket does worry me.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

We are doing a piece of work on the issue of overcrowding. It is due to come in the autum with the second piece of rent legislation. The first piece of legislation provided for those measures that we think we can implement more quickly because they are less complicated from a legislative point of view. We hope it will be easier to get agreement across the House in order that we can expedite that legislation and get it through as quickly as possible.

When I saw that 21% were under the age of 24 years, I found it very worrying. When we include the numbers for those under 34 years of age, the figure jumps to about 60% or maybe a little over, which is also worrying. Also worrying is the figure for lone parents who are massively over-represented in emergency accommodation compared to the general population. Having met some of the families and lone parents living in emergency accommodation, a huge amount of care and support is provided for them, but it must be very difficult for them in those circumstances. That is why it is always superior to see them in a hub and also to get them into their own homes.

On family breakdown, we have the numbers for the different types but no more than that. It will require a much more detailed piece of survey work in interacting with an individual to get behind the reasons there was a falling out with a parent, for example.

The Chairman is right to single out Housing First as a measure that is succeeding well. I do not like to name individuals, but I do think Mr. Bob Jordan, the national director whom I appointed earlier this year, is doing a fantastic job. On the two refusals mentioned by the Chairman, I do not know the reasons. I do not collect that information in the Department. I was not aware that there had been two for the 12 houses under that scheme or that they were by persons living in emergency accommodation.

The Chairman is right to use the word "misconception" in respect of the HAP scheme. The report mentions people being unsure and afraid about the concept behind the scheme. The evidence tells us that it does work in the vast majority of cases and also that we need to make some changes to it to make it work for others who are unsure of the concept or have refused to participate in it while living in emergency accommodation. We can do that work. The Chairman and Deputy Fergus O'Dowd are dead right. If we just abolished the scheme, what would the solution be?

On new builds and the local property tax, yes, it is used for housing, especially when the rates are raised. Additional money then goes into housing provisions under the requirements to be met. There are two review groups looking at the local property tax. One involves the Department of Finance in conjunction with my Department, while the other involves my Department alone in considering the baseline rates and allocations. The work will conclude at the end of the autumn.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I thank the Minister for the detail of his replies. Picking up on a few bits and pieces, I am not sure whether the CSO is the right agency to compile future housing reports. I have not made up my mind on the matter. If the Minister is of a mind to consider it and debating it with his officials, he should consider including in the figures, in a way that they can be separated out in order that the different categories are clear, the almost 100 adults and children in non-Department funded emergency accommodation in the city such as Morning Star and Regina Coeli. That is important. If the Department is moving towards the CSO reporting, including rough sleepers in the overall aggregate figure would be useful.

The position is similar in regard to Tusla domestic violence figures and step-down emergency accommodation residents. For example, Professor Eoin O'Sullivan, as Ms Hurley is aware as he sends her his detailed analysis of each quarterly report, compiles a graph which displays the figures in a bar chart showing section 10 funding, Tusla funding, non-funded emergency accommodation, etc. I recommend that to the Minister.

On HAP, I do not want the Minister to mistake our position for that of others. HAP has good and bad things and I have never called for it to be abolished. In fact, I have always argued that we need a rental subsidy. I agree with Deputy O'Dowd that the facility allowing HAP recipients to work is an improvement on rent supplement. When that was announced I welcomed it, as did Deputy Ellis. However, the difficulty is that the legislation was not designed as a temporary solution but, rather, to say that the housing needs of those using it had permanently been met. That was the intention of the legislation. I accept Deputy Eoghan Murphy was not the Minister at the time. However, because of the nature of the rental market, it may not be the case that those housing needs have permanently been met. Some HAP landlords may extend the lease every two years but others may not, which creates an instability.

The crucial point is that if one is on the housing waiting list of Dublin City Council for 11 years and the average waiting time for a council property is 12 or 13 years in one's area of choice and one moves on to HAP, the number of years before one will have a chance of getting a council house increases. That is the disincentive identified in this report and previously and that is why I wish to explain the system used by South Dublin County Council which I think fixes that core problem. A year ago, South Dublin County Council stated that a person who goes into HAP, whether from emergency accommodation or otherwise, is taken off the global housing list, as per the legislation, and placed on a HAP transfer list, as the circular requires, but the person's access to housing is through choice-based letting and the original years on the housing list remain intact, which means nobody who moves from the standard list onto the HAP transfer list is in any way disadvantaged. That system has been up and running for a year and my only concern is that the report of the inter-agency group did not look at it and ask the simple question as to whether it has fixed the problem in the South Dublin County Council area. The housing managers there introduced it because a year ago they were aware of the disincentive the Minister is now contemplating. They discussed it with councillors and found a solution which I understand from my constituency work has resolved that difficulty. I can now tell someone who comes into my constituency office to take a HAP place if he or she has been on the housing list for ten or 11 years because he or she will not have to wait any longer for a council house than would otherwise be the case. I urge the Minister to consider that system.

I am concerned by the language used in the inter-agency report where it states: "it also needs to be considered whether it is appropriate for the State to provide emergency accommodation to households who are unwilling to consider HAP". That is particularly concerning in the context of what I have just said. I think the Minister addressed this point earlier but I ask him to clarify it. I presume he is saying the matter has been considered but this is not going to happen. People were nervous about that statement when they saw it in newspaper reports this morning.

I am also concerned that the report of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, DRHE, states: "It can be assumed that a significant percentage of the Non-EU individuals may not have entitlement to housing support." The Minister did not answer the earlier question on this issue. None of the reports, including the very detailed and good report of the DRHE, published last week, contain any evidence of the truth of that statement. Does such evidence exist?

I am not obsessing on homeless figures. In fact, we could have dealt with this six weeks ago if we had received the information. The problem is that information from county managers which is in the public domain stands in stark contrast to what the Minister tells us in regard to the reasons, the nature of the people removed and whether it was done by agreement or instruction. It is the job of the committee to scrutinise the decisions of the Minister. When Mr. Brendan Kenny tells us that the approximately 200 individuals who were removed from the list in April are still homeless, it causes an alarm bell to ring in my head. When the director of housing in Louth emails every councillor and Deputy in that local authority area to say the 100 people removed from his list were still homeless but the council was requested by the Minister's Department to remove them, that sets off alarm bells. I do not want to get into a row about it again today. However, in order to resolve this issue the Minister must bring that detailed information to the committee and either convince us that what he did was right or allow us to properly scrutinise it and decide if what he did was wrong and those families should be returned to the list. It is not members of the committee who are sowing confusion, but, rather, the Minister's failure to disclose the information which led him, his Department or someone else to have those families removed from the list. In my view, the Minister has added to that confusion today.

Chairman

For clarity, in private session Deputy Ó Broin agreed to circulate the emails he received in regard to the reclassification of those figures. We were to receive them some time ago but he has today agreed to circulate them to members. I call Deputy Casey.

Deputy Pat Casey

On the gathering of information for the homeless figures, does the quarterly report published on the Department's website contain more information than the monthly report? Are there standard guidelines within each local authority on how they report the information to the Department? Is there a standard format for so doing? Who is responsible for liaison between the Department and local authorities?

Deputy Dessie Ellis

I did not say that HAP has no advantages. Rather, I was pointing to and emphasising the economics of it. I know there are some advantages to HAP, such as people being able to work. Before 2011, when I was a councillor, rent supplement cost significantly less than €300 million. The HAP, rental accommodation scheme, RAS and rent supplement now cost over €500 million, although the RAS and rent supplement are being done away with. An unemployed person who has a family and monthly rent of €1,400 will seek €1,000 from the State towards that rent. That is the reality of what is happening and it is bad economics. We need to look at building more social housing. I keep emphasising that point. It bugs me that we have missed opportunities to acquire homes, such as when Ires Reit bought large numbers of apartments in Hampton Wood. If we are not building homes, we at least should try to buy them. We will get better value for money in the long run if we do so. That is the point I was making to the Minister. It greatly upsets me that Ires Reit has 130 units in Hampton Wood, and will benefit from HAP. The council has taken 50 units and will take more because it wants to try to get people into homes, whether under HAP or otherwise.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I thank the Deputies for their questions. In answer to Deputy Ó Broin on the Central Statistics Office, CSO, that proposal or suggestion was put to me but I have not approached the CSO in that regard.

It is interesting that one of the reports states that emergency accommodation should not be looked at as a catch-all for everyone who is vulnerable. There is sense in that because if we look to one number all the time, it will not tell us of the successful pathways out of there for those people, nor what real complexities we are facing. That is why we should try to disaggregate the number and understand which people in emergency accommodation can be helped through a traditional pathway such as the private rental sector or a built home. The inter-agency group is working to understand which people have long-term health needs, justice issues or other requirements. We will have more discussions on the recording system because we also need to reform the pathway accommodation and support system, PASS, and the kind of information it collects.

I appreciate the clarifications on HAP and Sinn Féin's position in that regard. On instability, Deputy Ó Broin stated that going into HAP may extend the waiting time for a person to get a permanent social housing home. However, being in a home is far superior to being in emergency accommodation and our priority must be to get people out of emergency accommodation first. That is why we have HAP and the transfer list. For the vast majority of people, the HAP meets their housing need. The inter-agency group has not finished its work and continues to meet. This is its first report. We will continue to need to co-ordinate our work and responses, drill down to some of the information that has already been unearthed and pursue some of the recommendations.

My interpretation of the section of the inter-agency group report referred to by Deputy Ó Broin is that we would look at the initial recommendations, 1 and 2, and see how best we can implement them.

I do not agree with the interpretation that some have put on it, that it suggests that we would refuse, threaten to withdraw or withdraw emergency accommodation from people. Some people jumped the gun in this area. That was unfortunate. That is not my interpretation of the report and it is not what I will pursue in following the recommendations.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

What about non-EU nationals?

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I will go back to the DRHE on that. My assumption is that was based on its interaction with individuals. I would like more detail in this report but I was keeping the DRHE under the hammer to get the report produced and delivered to me so that I could publish it. We know that more work needs to be done but a huge amount of work did go into this.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

What about the Ires and Hampton Wood? We need to be more proactive.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I will finish my response to Deputy Ó Broin first. I am trying to read my own handwriting. In respect of bringing information into the public domain, Brendan Kenny did not say that people are still homeless. We have to be very careful here. He said they kept their priority because that was in line with the previous policy in the local authority. Louth County Council admitted that there had been a mistake initially about people it said had been in emergency accommodation or were or were not recategorised. Some of them were in HAP so they were not even on a housing list.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I accept that but Brendan Kenny did say and the quote is: "They’re still homeless. They’re on the homeless list, they have homeless priority". That is the direct quote.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

That is not.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

That is the direct quote.

Chairman

Deputy Ó Broin can come back in. I have no problem letting him back in, just let the Minister continue without interruption.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

With the other Louth numbers there was no risk of people going into emergency accommodation. We are talking about people in emergency accommodation, hotels and hostels, where there is a risk to their tenancy and of their being forced out onto the streets. That is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about people who are in houses, homes, who are safe. Deputy Ó Broin is trying to give the impression that I am trying to keep information from the committee. I have just published two reports that we have never seen before. I set up an inter-agency group. I come in and talk to the committee.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

They were not on the issue we asked the Minister to talk to us about, in fairness.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I told the Deputy that information is coming.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

That is what today's meeting is about.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

The Deputy wanted us to have the meeting before we even had the information and he still wants to meet before we have the information.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The Minister has all the information.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

No I do not have all the information.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

He does.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I do not.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

He does. He has enough to remove families from the list.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

Deputy Ó Broin is trying to give the impression that the Department is not being transparent.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I am saying the Minister is not being transparent, not the Department.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

The Deputy is again personalising this to me. I think it is a weird pursuit.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The Minister is the one responsible.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

Yes I am responsible.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

We are holding you to account.

Chairman

We are going around in circles.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I am responsible. That is why I set up the inter-agency group. That is why I came forward with recommendations. I am responsible, that is why I asked the DRHE to do this work. That is why I have published these reports. That is why I did not delay the publication to wait for the completion of a survey. It is why I published them and we are discussing them today at this committee meeting.

What the Deputy is trying to do is very deliberate and very obvious. He is focusing on the wrong things. He is trying to undermine the work the Department is doing with the local authorities-----

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Absolutely not.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

-----to try to help people out of emergency accommodation into homes.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

We are holding the Minister to account. That is our job.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

The Deputy is obsessed with the politics of a number.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The Minister is finding that difficult.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I have no difficulty in my job. I have no difficulty appearing before the committee, or speaking in the Dáil every day, as I do, on these issues or going in front of the media to be held to account. I do it every week in this job. My concern here is that the Deputy is obsessed with the number and the politics of the number. My only obsession is finding solutions for people in emergency accommodation, some of whom may be trapped in emergency accommodation because they are not in the right type of emergency accommodation and they will never find a successful pathway out of that accommodation.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Then the Minister should stop withholding information from the committee, share it with us and let us deal with it properly.

Chairman

To be fair, and we are not on a football pitch here, had the Minister come back and said he needed to delay this meeting because he had not got the survey that was part of the report, members would have been annoyed because we were pushing it out further. He has said he will come in whenever that survey is given to him with all that information. The committee is given a huge volume of information. If we can focus on the questions, policies and solutions rather than personalities, as we always do at this committee, it would be far more beneficial than being distracted by things that are happening off the ball.

Deputy Casey asked several questions too.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

The Minister did not answer.

Chairman

He will take the questions in order. Deputy Ellis came in after Deputy Casey.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

He did not answer the question when I spoke.

Chairman

No but Deputy Casey asked his question before Deputy Ellis asked. He will take them in the order they were asked.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

Go ahead.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

Do not let me be accused of withholding information from Deputy Ellis. I may not have time to even get to him. This is the type of language Sinn Féin is using and it is completely political, obvious and transparent.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

No, I am sorry. I thought we were at the point.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

In response to Deputy Casey's question on the quarterly reporting we report on the monthly numbers. Eoin O'Sullivan's analysis is not ours. He includes other figures such as direct provision and everything else. All other matters that we report on in respect of housing are quarterly. Most organisations report quarterly because that allows them to better understand trends, analysis and data and when they report on that quarter they do not do it a week or two after that quarter has ended, they have taken a month or month and a half to analyse the information and present it in the right way. That is the best way to do it to get accurate information from the people who have prepared the report.

On the gathering of data, there is guidance for that. We are reviewing it. We will wait until we get the survey back to see exactly what is happening on how information is being collated. A body of work needs to be done on the pathway accommodation and support system, PASS, to see what information it is bringing into the system when we put the numbers into it. That is what we are trying to do. Both reports speak to the necessity of improving the information we have and that means gathering it in a better way before we publish it and the analysis.

I do not dispute Deputy Ellis's position on the economics of HAP when I look at the numbers on how we are using taxpayers' money but we cannot consider this just from an economic point of view, we have to consider it from a social need point of view too and we do. We are building more houses. The ambition of Rebuilding Ireland and Project Ireland 2040 is to build a stock of social housing homes every year that is a percentage of the total delivery of homes in the private sector such that no matter what happens in the future that safety net is there for the most vulnerable people in our society. That is the absolute aim under Rebuilding Ireland. Until we have more homes built we will continue to have an over-reliance on the private rental sector.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

In regard to Hampton Wood, that experience is being repeated elsewhere: companies such as Ires are buying large quantities of new housing and are advertising that they will give 130 units for HAP. The council has taken 50. I spoke to Brendan Kenny. He is looking for more. We are missing an opportunity. From an economic point of view it would be better if we bought those 50 units and put them into social housing. We would save ourselves money.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I understand the point. I am not familiar with the site but if there are 130 homes and 50 might be in HAP, the positive point is that 80 will be there for people in the private rental sector. We have to bear in mind that people have needs in that area as well.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

Fair enough. I do not want to see anyone lose out on a home. At least they are coming into HAP. I want to know why we cannot get them and be more proactive. This is happening elsewhere.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

We have to focus our resources on building our own stock as well.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

Fair enough but we are not doing that.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

It is happening. It is ramping up and we see that in the numbers but we have to find that balance. I agree that we would not choose some of the economics here if we were starting from here but, unfortunately, we were not starting from a stable housing market.

Chairman

Is Deputy Ellis happy that his question has been answered?

Deputy Dessie Ellis

It has been answered.

Chairman

I am just clarifying before we move on or I will be accused of not letting people get answers.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

I am caught between saying I do not like what is being done by HAP because I understand we have to get people into housing and if HAP is one of the mechanisms we have now we are stuck with it. I am not happy with it. I hear people say we are illiterate when it comes to economics but from an economic point of view it does not make sense.

Senator Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

I asked about the hub and the bed and breakfast accommodation and the Minister said families in hubs would be housed more quickly than those in hotels or bed and breakfast accommodation. That is a concern. The Minister said the quicker timeframe applies to those residing in a family hub rather than a hotel or a B&B. In my area we are lucky because for hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation it is not a massive issue. I am bringing this report to my local authority tomorrow because the Minister is telling us that there is funding available. I have seen cases recently of people in houses which were available at a good price that local authorities could have bought but they did not have the funding. There is a lot of confusion. I believe the figures are totally wrong. I say that from my experience of dealing with people every day. The HAP works in certain areas but not in others. Is there any way the Minister can do something on the 20% discretion?

All the local authorities now have 20% discretion for people on HAP but it is not half enough. Given that there is a housing crisis and people are not in rent pressure zones is there any way the Minister can consider being a little more lenient than 20%? It is not enough.

I realise everybody wishes to go home but there are major issues-----

Chairman

We are here until 10.15 p.m. so we are not going home. I have to speak in the Chamber.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The Senators are able to go home.

Senator Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

I will return to the HAP, the lack of information on it and the fact that the rent pressure zones are causing massive homelessness. I believe this will be a bigger problem for the local authorities that do not qualify. The Minister is telling us there is funding available yet I know of houses for sale within the price but the local authority tells me it does not have the funding. Is there just special funding for homelessness? The Minister needs to clarify this matter. Is he saying the funding is just for homelessness? Are houses being bought from it? Is it helping to put people up in bed and breakfast accommodation or to put them in a hub or whatever? The information being given to me is not correct most of the time because when I return to my local authority and tell the members what the Minister tells me they say "No". I am not giving out about my local authority. It is a great local authority.

Chairman

Which local authority is it?

Senator Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

I am not going to mention it. I am not criticising the local authority. The Minister must clarify what areas the funding is going to, what qualifies for the funding and under what scheme it is being provided. They are the biggest issues. I will bring that information back with me tomorrow. If the authority says it cannot buy a house, which will result in somebody being homeless, I will come back to the Minister. I am being nice about this.

Again, on the 20% discretion in the HAP, in the case of local authorities that do not qualify to be a rent pressure zone can the Minister consider giving them extra money given that rents have gone up? If he cannot include them in a rent pressure zone can he examine giving them an extra amount for the 20% discretion in the HAP? I know the Minister is changing the cap and I will hold him to that. He said the ceiling for qualifying to go on the local authority's housing waiting list will be changed. Ours is only €27,500 and in all our neighbouring authorities it is €33,000. That has to be changed. These are big, crucial issues that will prevent people from becoming homeless. They might seem small but they are massive.

Chairman

That is a lot in a minute, Senator. We have your questions.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

Prevention is key and that is the reason I told the local authorities to be innovative to prevent people from going into emergency accommodation. That is why some of them use section 10 funding to keep people out of emergency accommodation and why they should not have been categorised as being in emergency accommodation. That is the reason we have that issue. They are doing what the Senator wants them to do. They are using the money proactively to keep people out of emergency accommodation, and it is good to see that.

All the resources and policies are in place for each local authority to tackle the challenges it faces with housing and homelessness. However, not every local authority always implements policy the same way. We can only learn that when a Deputy or Senator brings it to our attention, and then we can go back to the local authority and tell it that it can buy these houses and it has the funds to do so. If there is evidence of that not happening we need to know about it.

The point about the hubs is that they are more successful in moving people on. There is better care and support in a hub centre than there is in a hotel. That is why the hub is the preferred model as a first response. People spend less time in emergency accommodation as a result. Local authorities have to build, acquire and long-term lease, but we must get the balance right. We do not want local authorities acquiring in high demand areas because it will displace young families or individuals who are trying to purchase. We want them to increase the stock of social housing and that is happening.

With regard to the 20% discretion with the HAP, I can only speak to the evidence I have. It shows that it has only been necessary in 13% of HAP cases in the Senator's local authority area.

Senator Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

It is becoming bigger now with the rent pressure zone.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

It can do it for more and it is not hitting its cap.

Senator Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

How far can the discretion go if I went to my local authority tomorrow with a couple seeking it? The local authority says it can give them 20%. By how much is the Minister saying it can increase it? It has discretion and the local authority tells me it is 20%.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

It can go to 20%-----

Senator Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

Can it go further?

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

-----but the evidence shows it is not even going to 20%.

Senator Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

They are now. The local authorities that are not in the rent pressure zones are being affected and they will need an increase in the HAP.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

The average rate of discretion is approximately 15% in the Senator's local authority area.

Senator Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

My figure is a lot less than that.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

There is still room. It is only being applied in 13% of HAP cases.

Senator Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

People will be coming to me.

Chairman

The Senator can contact the Department.

Senator Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

I ask Mary Hurley to refer back to me.

Chairman

I thank the Minister, Ms Mary Hurley and Mr. David Kelly for attending the meeting this evening and for the volume of information they always provide to the committee. The next meeting of the joint committee will be held next Thursday and will resume the examination of the homeless figures.

The joint committee adjourned at 7.06 p.m. until 9 a.m. on Thursday, 28 June 2018.