Dublin City Council is offering sleeping bags to homeless people instead of emergency accommodation, the Dáil has heard.

Sinn Féin social protection spokesman Aengus Ó Snodaigh also said the Department of the Environment had not yet released any of the funding pledged to combat homelessness, “despite the Minister, Alan Kelly having made several announcements to the contrary”.

Mr Ó Snodaigh said Mr Kelly “has continued his road trip announcing billions of euro which have not been made available to the city council to carry out the work it needs to do in order to deliver social housing”.

Yet “Dublin City Council staff are offering sleeping bags to some of the homeless people instead of emergency accommodation”.

Minister for Enterprise and Jobs Richard Bruton said Mr Kelly and Minister of State Paudie Coffey had put significant effort into dealing with housing and homelessness.

He said Dublin City Council had submitted plans for individual social housing projects. “These will be approved in accordance with the usual procedures.”

Some construction proposals were blocked as was the department’s right but there was significant focus on the delivery of construction projects.

“The proposals by the various councils are being evaluated and I am sure they will be approved as rapidly as possible,” he added.

Social housing

Mr Bruton insisted that Mr Kelly had put in place a social housing strategy to build 35,000 extra social units over the next number of years and “he is determined to see a very significant increase in the availability of social housing”.

Mr Bruton said he was confident that the target set and the availability of new houses for letting in Dublin city would increase twofold or threefold over the coming years.

Mr Ó Snodaigh said during Leaders’ Questions that despite the “flurry of activity” and provision of 260 beds for emergency accommodation since the death six months ago of homeless man Jonathan Corrie near the Dáil, the number of people sleeping rough had only fallen by 15.

The latest figures show there are 150 people currently sleeping rough in Dublin, and Mr Ó Snodaigh said those in emergency accommodation were now concerned that the 260 beds that were provided following Mr Corrie’s death “will soon be closed because it was a temporary arrangement until June”.

Rent controls

He appealed to the Government to give a commitment to maintain those beds and increase the provision of emergency accommodation and also called for rent controls in the private sector.

There was less private rented accommodation available and “private rents are going up, well beyond the reach of those who are dependent on rent allowance”.

Independent TD Mick Wallace also lashed out at the Government’s housing strategy, claiming there was “no sense” to it and that it was “too dependent on the private sector behaving in a moral fashion towards those in dire straits”.

He pointed to the €25 million allocation for Wexford to build 677 local authority houses, but “Wexford has been told it can build 19 local authority social housing units in the next three years”, in a constituency with 3,600 households on the housing waiting list.

Homeless

Mr Bruton acknowledged there had been a very high reliance on the private rented sector in recent years but he said the Minister for the Environment had changed direction with the commitment to build 35,000 social housing units. “That is a reversal of the trend and it will meet a need in the market.”

Later, Sinn Féin's Dessie Ellis said 40 new families every month were becoming homeless but only 167 local authority houses would be built in Dublin in the next 3½ years.

He accused the Government of “creative accounting masked as callous inactivity”.

However Minister of State Ann Phelan said there was a major Government commitment to €3.86 billion in funding over three years.

She said her own Carlow-Kilkenny constituency had received a €64 million allocation.