Pearse Doherty
Question:372. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for the Environment; Community and Local Government if he will provide the number of people who were homeless on an annual basis from 1992 to 2011. [41534/12]
View answerTuesday, 2 October 2012
Questions (372)
Written answers
Historically, there has been considerable difficulty in quantifying the numbers of persons homeless at any given time and this is in part a consequence of the volatility within this cohort of housing need. For that reason annualised data sets for the period 1992 to 2007 inclusive are not available.
However, the Housing Agency’s Housing Needs Assessment 2008 and 2011 reports break down the categories of housing need, including in respect of homelessness, for all 88 housing authorities nationwide. These are available on my Department’s website at www.environ.ie.
This statutory assessment of housing need, carried out every three years by all housing authorities, only counts homeless persons where an application has been made to a housing authority.
The extent of homelessness in the Dublin region, where numbers are most pronounced, was reviewed and updated using the now fully operational Pathway Accommodation & Support System (PASS) and crosschecked against each of the Dublin local authorities’ housing management data systems to give an accurate figure of the known homeless population in Dublin. Following extensive cross checking and quality control to remove duplications and ensure accuracy of all data entries, the confirmed extent of homelessness in the Dublin region as at September 2011 was 1,891 persons. PASS, which commenced operation in the Dublin region in 2011, is being extended nationally on a phased basis with work currently underway in other regions. The PASS system will in future provide good quality, timely, data on homelessness nationally as an evidence base for all homelessness services.
On 6 September 2012, the CSO published its special Census report, Homeless Persons in Ireland and it indicated that 3,808 persons were either sleeping rough or in accommodation designated for the homeless on the night of 10 April 2011. The rough sleeper count was 64, with 59 of those people located in Dublin. It is not tolerable that anyone should sleep on the streets but it is important that the homeless figures released are not confused with the number of people sleeping rough. The vast majority of people classified in the CSO's report as homeless are in long-term or emergency accommodation.