Homelessness: Statements (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-22
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James Browne (FF), Wexford

I thank the Senators for their very significant contributions on the last day and again today. It is a very difficult topic because it is one that is very close to every single one of us as elected representatives and it impacts on every corner of the country in many ways. I really appreciate the time taken by people to give voice to people impacted by precarious living, homelessness and a lack of secure tenancy. Those voices are fundamental to any discussion on this issue.
I want to be very clear, as I believe I always am with this issue, that addressing homelessness and increasing the supply of homes required to do that is my absolute priority. The programme for Government recommitted to working towards ending homelessness by 2030. To meet this commitment, Delivering Homes, Building Communities was developed as an integrated housing and homelessness plan. I was determined to ensure that how we tackle homelessness was at the heart of the work of the action plan. It has to be and I feel very strongly about that. The new housing action plan is based on two key pillars: activating the supply of 300,000 more homes and supporting people to have a home of their own. The plan will ensure that the funding and the strategies deployed to address housing and homelessness are fully aligned at all times.
Increased supply is key to addressing homelessness. This Government is focused on making sure that everyone has access to quality, affordable, warm, safe and secure homes that suit their needs. Previously, the Minister of State, Deputy O’Sullivan, spoke to the actions in the plan focused on increasing supply, with over €9 billion in capital funding being made available for housing in 2026 alone. In addition, we are progressing significant measures to improve both security of tenure and supply in the rental market through the new rental legislation and the regulation of short term lets. The new rental legislation has introduced significantly stronger tenant protections by massively restricting no-fault evictions for new tenancies created on or after 1 March 2026. The current provision for tenancies of unlimited duration has been strengthened by the incorporation of tenancies of minimum duration of six years. In addition, the regulation of short-term lets will bring back a proportion of the houses and apartments which are being used for short-term letting purposes to the traditional long-term rental market, thereby helping to ease the accommodation shortage pressures. Measures and actions already under way are having an impact and I want to see more and faster. I am determined to get this right as quickly as possible for every single person and their family in a precarious living situation or accessing homelessness supports in the State.
Supported by the increased social housing delivery and supports such as HAP, more than 6,500 adults were helped to exit emergency accommodation in the last two years. This is important to recognise. It is real work that has been done by local authorities, as supported by staff and working with many charities and NGOs in the area who do incredible work to provide pathways for people to engage with services in an appropriate way for each individual case. It is extremely sensitive work. In addition to this, more than 9,000 adults were prevented from entering emergency accommodation in the same period, including through significant investment in tenant in situ acquisitions and tenancy sustainment measures.
The housing plan recognises that delivery alone is not enough. Despite a significant increase in new homes being delivered and the high number of people supported to exit homelessness, the number of households, including families with children in homeless emergency accommodation, has continued to rise. I do not accept this as the status quo . In order to see the number of people experiencing homelessness fall, there must be an increased availability of homes for households at risk of homelessness, not only as an exit pathway but also to prevent people from needing to access emergency accommodation in the first place. I am working with each local authority to examine how the allocations of these new social homes will best address the needs of households experiencing homelessness and, in particular, families with children. Under Delivering Homes, Building Communities, each local authority will prepare a new housing delivery action plan, HDAP, reflecting local need identified, including within the housing needs and demand assessment framework. Within this broad framework, evidence-informed local authority HDAPs provide a detailed picture of the quantum, type, size, and location of social homes to be delivered by local authorities and AHBs.
Learning from the first round of these plans will help to inform and strengthen the next iteration of plans and set clear targets against which local authority and AHB delivery will be benchmarked to 2030. This will include minimum targets for quantity, type and size of social homes and, for example, identifying housing for priority groups, including disabled persons.
Prevention of homelessness in the first instance is an absolute priority. In that context, there are many preventions initiatives already under way in my Department and across the Government. This includes the provision of social and affordable housing, HAP and homeless HAP and our strong tenancy protection legislation. In addition, we support local authorities in providing services prevention services through significant funding each year. The level of expenditure on prevention services rose from €15.4 million in 2021 to €24.7 million in 2024, an increase of €9.3 million. It is now 7% of the total homelessness budget. In order to ensure a fully aligned all-of-government approach under the plan, we are developing a national homelessness prevention framework within which homelessness can be prevented in a structured and planned way with tailored prevention measures for each potential at-risk cohort.
It is also important that appropriate supports are provided to households exiting emergency accommodation to mitigate their risk of re-entering homelessness. With this in mind, the framework will have regard to the reasons for presentation to homelessness. In order to drive the development of the prevention framework, a steering group comprising senior departmental officials has been established. The framework will be in place this year.
We are developing a child and family homelessness action plan, bringing together key stakeholders to drive the continued focus on preventing children and families entering emergency accommodation, providing enhanced supports for children experiencing homelessness, as well as measures to accelerate exits and reduce the time spent by children and their families in homeless emergency accommodation. To better inform the action plan, we have invited input from all stakeholders. An online consultation to inform the plan was held in January. There was also an in-person event that was attended by more than 100 stakeholders from Departments, State bodies and NGOs. The plan is being drafted. It is anticipated that it will be published by the end of quarter 2 of this year.
Since October of last year, I have written to and met with chief executives of local authorities to ensure that all necessary actions are taken to make sure that families longest in emergency accommodation are provided with housing solutions. I want to see them all utilising the various options open to local authorities, including HAP, RAS and the allocation of local authority and AHB homes, to exit these families from emergency accommodation. To further support this, funding of €150 million has been ring-fenced for acquisitions. In addition, recognising that domestic violence can lead to family homelessness, under the new plan, a protocol will be agreed with local authorities to provide that victims of domestic violence can transfer previous time spent on a social housing waiting list to another local authority, subject to meeting all social housing eligibility requirements.
Housing first is another key policy response in our efforts to reduce homelessness among our most vulnerable individuals. A key initiative under this plan will be the further expansion of the housing first programme to create 2,000 tenancies. An updated implementation plan will specify targets for each local authority for housing first tenancies in the coming months. Housing first has been an important policy response in our efforts to reduce homelessness amongst our most vulnerable. By deliberately targeting those at the sharpest edge of homelessness, the programme demonstrates that homelessness is a problem that can be eradicated.
The success of this programme is due in no small part to the partnerships that have been formed on an inter-departmental, inter-agency and local basis between housing and health services and service providers in the NGO sector. The plan also recognises that individuals experiencing homelessness with complex support-needs often become entrenched in emergency homeless services. Under the plan, the Department of Health will provide increased health support to households experiencing homelessness by means of the implementation of the HSE national strategic plan to improve the health of people experiencing homelessness. We had a youth homelessness strategy in place for the past three years, which introduced a range of new measures to address homelessness among those aged 18 to 24, including supported housing for youth and shared accommodation schemes. There is more to do in this space, and our new housing plan contains a commitment in respect of a continued focus on youth homelessness. I will be establishing a subgroup under the auspices of my national homeless action committee to focus specifically on youth homelessness.
Budget 2026 provides a total allocation of €563.5 million to address homelessness. This includes €513.5 million in current funding to ensure local authorities can provide sufficient emergency accommodation and essential related services, including housing first supports, homelessness prevention supports, day services, and tenancy sustainment measures. In addition, €50 million in capital funding will allow local authorities to invest in the provision of local authority or NGO-owned emergency accommodation facilities, developing a more sustainable approach to the delivery of emergency accommodation and ensuring that services are tailored for the needs of clients.
The housing plan recognises that an all-of-government approach is required to tackle the issues in this space. It is not a one-size-fits-all scenario. We have to work together to support the co-ordination of the response to homeless issues by Government and the national homeless action committee, which I chair, and which was established in 2021. The overarching objective of the committee is to ensure that a renewed emphasis is brought to collaborating across government. I do not underestimate the scale of the challenge in front of us. I will call out where work is not happening. However, we will engage deliberately where alignment goes off course to ensure it is back on course. In short, I will not accept a lack of ambition or stasis in decision-making in get things moving. Tackling this crisis demands new ways of working, with faster but always transparent decision-making and a relentless focus on delivery to deliver the homes we need.

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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/seanad/2026-04-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:50+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-22