Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 6 October 2020
326. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the estimated full year cost of providing emergency accommodation for homeless persons and families in 2019 and to date in 2020; and the estimated cost for 2021, including all supports paid to local authorities and subsidies to third-party providers. [28116/20]
View answerMy Department's role in relation to homelessness involves the provision of a national framework of policy, legislation and funding to underpin the statutory role of housing authorities in addressing homelessness at local level.
My Department does not fund any homeless service directly but provides funding to housing authorities towards these costs. Under the funding arrangements, housing authorities must provide at least 10% of the cost of services from their own resources. Housing authorities may also incur additional expenditure on homeless related services outside of these funding arrangements with my Department. Therefore, the exact amounts spent by housing authorities on homeless services, as well as the types of accommodation are a matter for the individual housing authorities.
Exchequer funding for homeless services is provided through my Department to housing authorities on a regional basis. The following table sets out the funding recouped to housing authorities on a regional basis for 2019. The Exchequer allocation for homeless services in 2020 is €196m, which is €50 million or 34% higher than 2019. The budget for 2021 will be agreed in the context of the Estimates process.
|
Region |
Exchequer funding provided in 2019 |
|
Dublin |
€120.7m |
|
Mid-East |
€ 5.53m |
|
Midland |
€ 2.81m |
|
Mid-West |
€ 7.56m |
|
North-East |
€ 3.68m |
|
North-West |
€ 0.67m |
|
South-East |
€ 4.55m |
|
South-West |
€ 12.05m |
|
West |
€ 7.45m |
Financial reports from each of the regions, setting out expenditure on homeless services, including emergency accommodation are published on my Department's website at the following link: https://www.housing.gov.ie/housing/homelessness/other/homelessness-data.
