Housing minister says new plan will reduce homeless figures – but not when

By Cillian Sherlock and Gráinne Ní Aodha, PA

Housing Minister James Browne has said he believes his new housing plan will reduce homelessness figures.

The monthly totals have been increasing steadily during this Government’s and the last government’s term, repeatedly breaking records for the number of people in emergency accommodation.

The revamped housing plan, to be published this week, includes measures to tackle rising homelessness and a funding boost for the Land Development Agency.

Mr Browne said the plan was about “activating supply, but also supporting people”.

Asked if the plan would reduce rising monthly homeless figures, he said: “I believe it will.

“The only way to address homelessness in this country, the only way to address high rents, is by supply. It’s by getting more and more houses, more and more apartments delivered at all the tenures right across the country to give people the other homes that they need, and that will address the costs of our housing for renters and provide the homes that people need in emergency accommodation to be able to exit.”

Mr Browne refused to be drawn on when he believed homeless figures would begin to reduce, stating: “I’ve never gotten into the forecasting game, I’m always about results.”

He said he wanted to provide “opportunities” for older people to “right size” on the home they live in.

“If they want to stay in the home that they’ve lived in all their life, that they raised their children, that has to be their right. But if they want to right size, that has to be their option and their decision.”

Mr Browne and Taoiseach Micheal Martin were asked about the plan ahead of it going to Cabinet on Wednesday.

Mr Martin has said the Government’s new housing plan will mark “the most unprecedented investment in housing ever”. He said the plan would include a “significant” boost in funding for the Land Development Agency (LDA).