Cowen sets up taskforce on Dublin homeless

TÁNAISTE BRIAN Cowen has established a ministerial taskforce to examine the plight of the homeless in Dublin.

Denying that there had been cutbacks in the funding of facilities, Mr Cowen said there was a need to co-ordinate the availability of revenue resources once the capital projects were completed.

"I have asked the relevant Ministers and Ministers of State in the Department of Health and the Department of the Environment to meet on this issue and see if it can be improved in the short-term."

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore urged Ministers to see at first hand the plight of the Dublin homeless. He said that anybody who cared to walk the streets after 9pm would find where the homeless were.

"I invite Ministers to get out of their cars and take a walk around these streets to look for examples.They include the doorways of St Anne's church on Dawson Street, the European Parliament building which is just down the road, the old Habitat shop on St Stephen's Green."

Mr Gilmore said that the homeless would be in those doorways from about 8.30pm until about 9am, because somebody on the Government side of the House had failed to ensure that the money and the resources were provided. "There is a need for some urgency to be put into this. These beds are available, but the doors are locked on them."

Mr Gilmore added that the RTÉ Prime Time programme had shown that seven homeless people had died in Dublin city over Easter.

"It showed the reporter on the programme trying to make telephone contact with the 24-hour emergency homeless services. He started ringing at 10pm but did not get through until after midnight and was then told that there was no bed available."

He added that facilities had been built and provided with public money, but were either not open or were operating under capacity because the money had not been provided to staff them.

The programme, said Mr Gilmore, had given an example of a 30-bed unit on James's Street which was built for €7 million, but which was not yet open because the money had not been provided for staffing.

It had shown that on Cork Street, only half of the 23 units designed for families were in use, while only seven of the 17 units on Brunswick Street were in use.

A facility for homeless people congregating on the river boardwalk was not functioning, said Mr Gilmore.

Mr Cowen said that resources for the homeless had been increased from €12.5 million a few years ago to over €52 million this year. The responsibility of funding care-related costs of homeless facilities rested with the HSE, which was providing €33 million this year.

"Therefore, there have not been any cutbacks in the provision of services over and above previous years." Mr Cowen said that the issue which seemed to be arising was the co-ordination between capital projects coming on stream from the Department of the Environment and accompanying availability of resources from the HSE to deal with care-related costs.

"The emergency accommodation in major urban centres has been addressed and sleeping rough around the country has been significantly reduced, especially in Dublin, where the new homeless agency has improved co-ordination."