Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 May 2026
671. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage whether his Department collects, analyses or publishes homelessness presentation data by immigration, residency or citizenship status. [38875/26]
View answerMy Department’s role in relation to homelessness involves the provision of a national framework of policy, legislation and funding to underpin the role of local authorities in addressing homelessness at a local level.
Statutory responsibility in relation to the provision of accommodation and related services for homeless persons rests with individual local authorities. Decisions on the assessment of households for homeless services, the most appropriate form of such support, and the allocation of that support are a matter for the local authority concerned.
My Department currently gathers and publishes data on a monthly basis on the number of homeless persons accommodated in homeless emergency accommodation funded and overseen by local authorities. These reports are based on data provided by local authorities, produced through the Pathway Accommodation & Support System (PASS), the single integrated national data information system on State-funded homeless emergency accommodation arrangements overseen by local authorities.
The monthly homelessness report includes details of individuals, families and the dependants of these families who accessed emergency accommodation during the relevant count week of the month in question. The most recently published data is in respect of March 2026. The reports are collated on a regional basis and are available on my Department's website at the following link: www.gov.ie/en/department-of-housing-local-government-and-heritage/collections/homelessness-data and are also published to the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation's open data portal https://data.gov.ie/.
Since April 2022 my Department has gathered information from local authorities on citizenship of adults accessing emergency accommodation. The citizenship information is broken down by Irish, EEA/UK and Non-EEA and is available in the monthly homelessness report on a regional basis at the link above.
My Department also publishes quarterly progress reports which are based on quarterly performance reports submitted by the nine regional lead authorities responsible for the administration of homeless services at local level. These quarterly performance reports include details of the numbers of individuals prevented from entering emergency accommodation, and those exiting emergency accommodation into tenancies and the duration of stay in emergency accommodation. The quarterly progress report summarises the data submitted to the Department.
Neither the monthly or quarterly reports include data on the immigration or residency status of individuals in homeless emergency accommodation.
