Housing Policy Dail Éireann — 2023-11-09 ============================================================ Cian O'Callaghan (SD), Dublin Bay North The number of children growing up without a home has never been so high in the history of this State. There are record numbers of children growing up homeless. This is having a devastating impact on their development and well-being. What is the Minister doing to reduce the number of children becoming homeless? I ask the senior Minister to answer. Darragh O'Brien (FF), Dublin Fingal We allocate the questions. Kieran O'Donnell (FG), Limerick City Supporting individuals and families facing homelessness is a key Government priority. We are supporting households to exit homelessness by increasing the supply of housing. The Department has prioritised measures that focus on accelerating social and affordable housing supply through a combination of new builds, targeted acquisitions and leasing. A record €4.5 billion was available this year to support the largest State investment ever, including 9,100 direct-build social homes and 5,000 affordable homes. We have the tenant in situ scheme. We have also established the national homeless action committee, NHAC, the overarching objective of which is to ensure that a renewed emphasis is brought to collaboration across government to implement actions in Housing for All, along with bringing better and coherent co-ordination of homeless-related services in delivering policy measures in order to address homelessness, including for children. Homelessness prevention is an immediate priority of the NHAC. A subgroup of the NHAC was established----- Cian O'Callaghan (SD), Dublin Bay North Has anything new been done to address it? Kieran O'Donnell (FG), Limerick City -----to examine and make recommendations and develop proposals relating to early intervention services for children and their families. Cian O'Callaghan (SD), Dublin Bay North Record numbers of children are homeless. Seán Ó Fearghaíl (CC), Kildare South Deputy, please. Do not interrupt the Minister of State. Kieran O'Donnell (FG), Limerick City In the past quarter, as the Deputy is aware, 1,279 people, including children, have been prevented from going into homelessness or have exited homelessness. Those numbers are increasing. The measures are working. We appreciate that the numbers are very high. Cian O'Callaghan (SD), Dublin Bay North There is record homelessness. Kieran O'Donnell (FG), Limerick City They relate to preventing people from going into and exiting homelessness. The NHAC subgroup put forward 15 recommendations and the Department reports progress regarding the recommendations of NHAC members. There are fine Government policies on homelessness, including among children. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-11-09/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:23+00:00 Sitting date: 2023-11-09