The amount of money spent on homeless accommodation topped €212m last year, including just over €92.2m on hotels and B&Bs.
As the Irish Examiner reports, the figures are contained in the Homelessness Financial End of Year reports for each region and show that while larger urban areas, including Dublin and Cork, saw expenditure on emergency accommodation fall last year, spending levels rose in other parts of the country.
In Dublin, the estimated annual spend was €185.9m but emergency accommodation provision in the capital ultimately cost €158.7m, a little under the revised estimate of €160.6m.
Some €66.4m was spent on unscheduled emergency accommodation including hotels and B&bs in Dublin last year, almost €20m below the initial expenditure estimate.
In the south-west (Cork and Kerry), the estimated cost was put at €17.5m but ultimately expenditure came in at €14.2m, led by a corresponding fall in the amount spent on hotels and B&Bs versus the original estimate.
Some €7.6m was spent on B&Bs, according to the report, including almost €4m by Cork City Council and €2.3m by Cork County Council.
Emergency accommodation
Other regions that saw less money spent than in the original estimate were the west, the south-east, the north-east, and the north-west.
However, expenditure on emergency accommodation increased in other regions, including the mid-east, the midlands, and the mid-west.
Despite a significant fall of almost €20m compared with the initial estimate, the expenditure on hotels in Dublin, at €35.1m, was the single biggest amount paid out across any category in any part of the country last year on emergency accommodation.
Focus Ireland director of advocacy Mike Allen said it was too early to say whether the drop in expenditure, particularly that involving hotels and B&Bs, was the start of a trend or whether it was due to Covid-19 mitigation measures.
He said there had been considerable savings from the decline in family homelessness, which he said had started to ease off pre-pandemic.
“The key change has been the eviction ban," said Mr Allen, referring to the 'blanket ban' that was lifted only last week.
“We are back to nobody knows what the consequences of ending that part of the eviction embargo will be,” said Mr Allen.
“If it turns out it's back to the same pattern as before, you will quickly see numbers go up again and that would be a disaster.”
