Government unable to publish monthly homeless figures due to public sector pay dispute

LAST UPDATE | 30 Oct

THE DEPARTMENT OF Housing will not publish its monthly homelessness figures today, saying industrial action has left it without the data needed to compile the report.

The department said it had not received returns from all nine regional lead authorities, which are responsible for submitting information on people accessing State-funded homeless emergency accommodation.

“With incomplete data, the Department is not in a position to publish the report as usual today,” a statement from the department said.

Housing Minister James Browne has been called on to “urgently clarify” when the data for the month of September will be released.

The figures due today would have covered September. The latest available national figures, published on 25 September, relate to August.

Those figures showed a record 17,885 people in emergency accommodation, comprising 12,055 adults and 5,830 children.

The total had increased by 358 compared with July, while the number of children had risen by 171. There were 2,800 family households in emergency accommodation. 

The monthly count does not capture everyone experiencing homelessness, as it excludes people sleeping rough, staying with friends or relatives, and those in domestic violence refuges.

Homeless services are organised across nine administrative regions nationwide, each with a lead local authority responsible for submitting figures to the department.

In its statement today, the department did not identify which regional returns remained outstanding.

The disruption comes amid industrial action by public sector workers over pay, with public service union Fórsa members in local authorities beginning a work-to-rule on 30 September.

A second day of planned strike action was halted earlier this month to allow for talks between government and union representatives but a work-to-rule has remained in place. 

The union’s instructions on the work-to-rule explicitly covers the supply of data to the Department of Housing and the Local Government Management Agency.

Fórsa’s published guidance says staff whose main responsibilities involve collecting and processing data should continue doing that work, but should withhold it from those bodies for reporting purposes until the industrial action ends, unless an exemption has been agreed.

The wider dispute concerns a successor public service pay agreement and unions’ demands for measures addressing living costs.

Government and union representatives have been holding talks on a new deal for the last 10 days.

The department’s statement did not give a revised publication date for its monthly emergency accommodation figures.

Social Democrats housing spokesperson Rory Hearne today called on Browne to “urgently clarify when homelessness data for end of September will now be published”.

He added that the government “cannot hide behind its claims that work-to-rule industrial action by local authority staff is the reason why publication of the latest homelessness figures has been delayed”.

“Work-to-rule industrial action has been ongoing for some weeks now, so it is extraordinary there was no contingency plan to allow for the figures to be collated,” said Hearne.

He added that the delayed publication “will simply defer further bad news on the homelessness front”.

“Given this Government’s appalling track record on homelessness, it’s safe to say we were not expecting any progress today on these bleak figures,” said Hearne.

Elsewhere, he added: “Seeing so many children forced into homelessness is a scandal in itself, but so too is the tragedy of older people losing their homes.” 

He said that in his constituency, a 65-year-old woman was “evicted and forced into emergency accommodation as there was nowhere affordable for her to rent”.

“Separately, another pensioner was sleeping on her sister’s couch while stuck on a waiting list for social housing.”

Hearne said the “lack of an emergency response to homelessness is unforgiveable” and claimed that “all we get is spin and half-baked measures from the Minister for Housing”.

“Today’s delayed publication of the latest homelessness figures is further proof that the housing crisis is not a priority for this Government,” said Hearne.

“The Minister for Housing must now give a precise timeline for when this data will be available as any further deferrals will not be tolerated.”