Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 7 July 2020
276. Deputy Gino Kenny asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government the amount spent on providing accommodation for homeless families and persons in hotels and bed and breakfasts in each local authority area from June 2017 up to and including June 2020, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13878/20]
View answerMy Department’s role in relation to homelessness involves the provision of a national framework of policy, legislation and funding to underpin and support the statutory responsibility of housing authorities to provide emergency accommodation for homeless persons..
My Department does not fund any homeless service directly but provides funding to housing authorities towards the operational costs of homeless accommodation and related services under Section 10 of the Housing Act 1988. Under Exchequer funding arrangements, housing authorities must provide at least 10% of the cost of services from own resources. Furthermore, housing authorities may also incur additional expenditure on homeless-related services outside of the Exchequer funding arrangements provided by my Department. Therefore, the precise amounts spent by housing authorities on homeless services, as well as the types of accommodation, are a matter for individual housing authorities in consultation with the Management Group of the relevant regional joint Homelessness Consultative Forum.
Financial reports from each of the regional fora, setting out total expenditure on homeless services are published on my Department’s website at the following link; https://www.housing.gov.ie/housing/homelessness/other/homelessness-data. Reports for 2017, 2018 and 2019 are available at this link. The reports for quarters 1 and 2 2020, will be published in due course. The table below sets out Exchequer funding provided to housing authorities for 2017 – 2019.
|
Year |
€m |
|
2017 |
109 |
|
2018 |
139 |
|
2019 |
165 |
