Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 6 October 2020
30. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage his policy response to the increase in the number of deaths of persons accessing emergency homeless accommodation and-or sleeping rough. [28830/20]
View answerAs the Minister knows, we have had a significant increase in the number of tragic and untimely deaths of people accessing emergency accommodation or sleeping rough. By August of this year, we had 39 reported such deaths in Dublin city alone. That is more than the 30-odd people who died last year and the year before in the city. We are also hearing similar reports from Galway and Cork. What is the Government's response to this serious deterioration in the situation for this particular group of homeless people?
I thank the Deputy for his question. Every single death in this regard is tragic and a loss to a family, as well as the support network looking after those individuals and the many committed volunteers working in homeless services.
Tackling homelessness is an absolute priority for me. Since taking office, as I just said to Deputy Cian O'Callaghan, I have met a wide range of stakeholders and have established the high-level homelessness task force which I chair. I have also engaged regularly with the Minister for Health, given the linkages with the health services, along with homelessness charities and NGOs and tenancy advocates. That helps to inform not just policy but action every day and what is required across cities and towns.
There have been several tragic deaths in recent months of individuals who have been accessing homeless services. It is vital we continue to deliver the appropriate measures to ensure that all individuals experiencing homelessness are supported to exit homelessness into permanent housing solutions. The programme for Government includes measures targeted at the complex needs of many of those experiencing homelessness. These include measures to help rough sleepers into sustainable accommodation, the continued expansion of Housing First, as well as a focus on the construction and indeed acquisition of one-bedroom homes. I have specifically asked our local authorities, through the housing agencies, to acquire any additional one-bedroom properties that may be on the market this year.
Importantly, we must ensure the necessary health and mental health supports are provided to assist homeless people with complex needs. The provision of addiction and mental health supports features prominently in the discussions which I am having with my task force and in my bilateral meetings with the Minister for Health. The task force will continue to focus on the Government's homelessness response as a matter of absolute priority.
I thank the Minister for his response. We need something more and specific on this particular problem. We have had some of the most appalling deaths. We have had rough sleepers beaten to death on the streets, allegedly for their mobile phones. We have had people taking their own lives in emergency accommodation or people dying through overdoses because of an inability to manage their addictions.
What connects all of these deaths - the Minister is right that each is an individual tragedy - is that the young people in question have an added vulnerability. The fact that they are rough sleeping or in emergency accommodation puts them at greater risk. This needs a focused response by the Government, separate from but within the overall response that the Minister outlined. We need to see an accelerated withdrawal from the use of congregated and dormitory-style accommodation. That is a commitment in the programme for Government and I would like to hear more about that. We need a greater focus on the small number of individuals whose homelessness, addiction and mental health concerns overlap to make them most distanced from emergency accommodation. Crucially, we need to look back at these particular deaths. In Britain, they use a measure known as adult safety reviews. It is a good mechanism for learning the lessons from these unnecessary and tragic deaths.
I agree with the Deputy. I am focused on doing whatever we can to ensure that the deaths in our homeless community are reduced as much as possible. It is obvious that we need to do that. That is why the first measure I took was establishment of the homelessness task force which I chair. Addiction services are important, as are mental health services and health teams.
We have seen through Covid that the better response to the more vulnerable in our community, particularly the homeless sector, with better health outcomes for many is due to the wrap-around services being available with people not actually having to deal with the bureaucracy that they may have had to in the past. That requires a HSE, Tusla and local authority response in the relevant areas, as well as from my Department. I am confident that with the programme for Government and the measures we have taken already, we will make strides in that area.
Each individual case is an absolute tragedy. Some of the cases are incredibly complex. It is my job to do everything I can to reduce that as much as possible.
A good place to start would be to establish the number of these deaths annually. The information is based on media reports. While we have some data for Dublin, we do not have data from other cities. I encourage the Minister to look at that.
I also encourage the Minister to look specifically at the recent increase in those deaths to see if there is something underlying it and if it requires more specific attention. It is six years since Jonathan Corrie tragically lost his life only a stone's throw from the front of Leinster House. That generated significant public anger, as well as protests and a demand for action.
While much has happened, some of it good and some bad, in housing and homeless policies, the number of people dying has increased. In the context of his engagement with the NGOs and his officials, will the Minister please give this specific attention and help us quantify the level of problems and what level of additional interventions is required to ensure next year we have fewer deaths as we are moving those people, rightly, into Housing First tenancies?
That is something we do in the context of every death that takes place. The issue of quantifying such deaths is that there is then a push to comment on each individual death. We have to respect the privacy of the individual and his or her family, as well as the fact that in many instances there are issues other than homelessness, such as serious health issues. We have to be cognisant of that. I understand how people feel when they see someone dying on the streets in a modern country like Ireland. It is not something any of us want to see. We want to see it stop. There is sometimes a rush, however, to comment on each of those cases. That would be counterproductive. We need a decent and good policy response.
In the short term and as winter approaches, as I have said to Deputy Cian O'Callaghan, the HSE winter plan, which I have been involved in on the housing side, includes an additional allocation of €5.5 million for service enhancements for people who are homeless.
That is up from €3 million in 2020. We have to look at targeting the resources in the places they are needed most but I take the Deputy's point on board.
