Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 13 July 2017
9. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if he will ensure a place finder team is established in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown as a matter of urgency; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33185/17]
View answerI have told the Minister on several occasions that the housing assistance payment, HAP, which forms approximately three quarters of the delivery of social housing that the Government is hoping to achieve between now and 2021 is a fantasy and a mirage which will not materialise. It is a nightmare for people to try to find HAP tenancies.
I have asked the Minister and tabled parliamentary questions about it, but I have not received accurate answers, or any answer, about where the place finder service is located in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown to assist homeless persons and those in difficulty in seeking housing to find HAP tenancies?
A homeless place finder service is managed by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive on behalf of all four Dublin local authorities. This specific and targeted service provides a housing assistance payment-based support service for homeless households and has been successfully operating in the Dublin region, including the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council area, since 2015. The service has been playing an important and growing role in securing accommodation for homeless households across the Dublin region, including families residing in emergency accommodation, as well as supporting homeless households to avoid having to enter emergency accommodation.
The place finder service has relationships with local estate agents and property owners and can identify properties quickly. In addition, the service can support homeless households to secure a tenancy by providing upfront payments for deposits and rent. A similar place finding service has recently been made available in the Cork city area.
The homeless place finder service can also utilise the HAP inter-authority movement protocol which was introduced in April to allow eligible households to avail of the HAP in any local authority area, subject to the current social housing eligibility income bands. Under the inter-authority movement protocol, households identified with a housing need in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown can access the HAP in other areas such as south Dublin or Wicklow and retain access to the transfer list in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. This is a significant benefit to households in areas where the shortage of rental accommodation is particularly acute.
There are more than 1,600 formerly homeless households whose needs are being supported by the homeless-specific HAP supports across the four housing authorities in the Dublin region, including Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. I am satisfied that the HAP scheme is generally working well, but I will keep its operation under ongoing review.
This is where scripted answers really are exposed. This is the same answer I received from the Minister on 27 June, in which it was stated the place finder service had been operating in the Dublin local authority areas since 2015. He went on to say they included Dún Laoghaire, but that is not true. This is a fact and it is referred to on the websites of the Dublin homeless executive and the Citizens' Information bureau, but I asked a member of my staff to ring the number. When one rings the number of the Dún Laoghaire branch and asks for the place finder service, one is asked, "What is place finder?" They do not even know what it is. We rang the homeless section directly in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and were told clearly that there was no place finder service in Dún Laoghaire. We then emailed the central service on 14 June but received no answer. I wrote to the Minister about a week ago detailing all of this information, but there has been no answer. Whoever wrote his answer is wheeling out stuff that is just not true. If that is what I get when I telephone the place finder service, what must it be like for somebody who is homeless with kids who is in and out of a hostel and is given the run-around as he or she looks for something that does not exist?
I know that the Deputy is not a fan of the HAP scheme and says it is not working, but some 300 tenancies are being created every week. There were 24,000 people under the scheme, of whom 23,000 found accommodation without the need for a place finder service. The Dublin Region Homeless Executive operates the place finder service for people on the housing list in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council area. I have not seen the correspondence the Deputy said he sent to me and I know that he raised the issue of the phone number at the committee a couple of weeks ago. I raised it with officials who said it was the correct number. To be quite honest, I am not sure where the problem is.
I wrote to the Minister on 6 July, detailing the problem and received a response yesterday from Luach Hardiman who I presume works in the Minister's office conveying apologies for the delayed response and saying he would bring the matter to the Minister's attention. I assume he still has not done so. I have detailed how we go through all of the instructions for the place finder service which is supposed to help homeless persons find HAP accommodation, but it is not available in Dún Laoghaire. That has been confirmed by the homeless section in Dún Laoghaire which has also confirmed that it goes through the central placement services which are located in Dublin. When we rang them, we were told the Focus Ireland workers could hardly find any HAP accommodation because landlords were not interested.
That is not consistent with the facts.
It is very important, if the Minister gives me two parliamentary responses to the effect that there is a place finder service operating in Dún Laoghaire, but when I ring the county council the staff have to ask what it is before the homeless section tells me there is no place finder service. People in trouble need a place finder service which we want. Will the Minister set up a dedicated place finder service in Dún Laoghaire to assist people find the HAP accommodation he believes is available?
Did the Deputy ring the housing section in Dún Laoghaire and ask if it had a place finder service, or did he ask if people in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown were able to access the place finder service in the Dublin Region Homeless Executive? I am not sure what he has been doing, but I know that what is behind his frustration is the fact that he does not believe in the HAP scheme, even though there are 18,000 landlords providing HAP tenancies for 24,000 people. Approximately 1,000 people have used the place finder service in Dublin to access HAP tenancies.
I am saying there is no place finder service in Dún Laoghaire.
Tenants on the lists in Dún Laoghaire can access the place finder service for the four Dublin local authorities.
They are told to ring Dún Laoghaire County Council.
