The number of times the National Homelessness Consultation Committee has met per annum since its establishment to date

QUESTION

To ask the Minister for Housing; Planning and Local Government the number of times the National Homelessness Consultation Committee has met per annum since its establishment to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

To ask the Minister for Housing; Planning and Local Government if his Department consulted with the statistics subgroup of the National Homelessness Consultation Committee in relation to the calculation of homeless figures for March 2018; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

REPLY

The National Homelessness Consultative Committee (NHCC) was established in April 2007. The Committee included representatives from my Department and a number of the NGOs working in the area.  It was established to provide a forum for a dialogue between the Department and NGO members in relation to policies to address homelessness.   While an informal working group including members of the NHCC had been established at one point to examine data and reporting, there is no statistics subgroup of the NHCC in existence.
The number of meetings held between 2009 and 2017, including meetings held jointly with the the Cross Departmental Team on Homelessness (CDT), are set out in the table below.
 
 Year    No of meetings
 2007    5
 2008    3
 2009    4
 2010    2
 2011    0
 2012    1
 2013    4
 2014    4
 2015    2
 2016    1
 2017    1

My Department meets regularly with NGO service delivery partners, outside the structures of the NHCC, to discuss issues of common concern.