Cllr calling for assessment and accommodation of homeless people within 48 hours of first contact

An independent councillor on Meath Co Council wants the council to assess and accommodate homeless people within 48 hours of them first making contact.

Alan Lawes tabled the notice of motion at the September meeting of the council. In an official reply to him the council said that the time taken to assess a person and locate accommodation for them depended on the complexity of the case and the availability of accommodation. “In the more complex cases the council’s Homeless Settlement Team is required to engage with other State agencies such as Tusla, the HS, Probation Service or Prison Service which will impact on the time required to achieve a placement. The availability of accommodation for the more complex cases is also a factor as not all providers will have the capability to handle such cases”.

The officials said it was not practicable to impose a 48-hour deadline.

Cllr Lawes said that all he was looking for was a minimum standard to uphold people’s dignity. “There is no reason to leave these people for seven days and seven nights on the street. We can do better than that”. He invited councillors to put an amendment to his motion that the council complete an assessment of homeless persons within 48 hours.

Fine Gael Cllr Sarah Reilly said that her own experience of the council’s homeless services was a good one. She wondered whether the motion as tabled could be implemented. “The motion is very broad and open ended. Does it mean that we have to take in everybody who applied, does it mean that we have to take in people from other counties? We need to look after the people in our own county first”.

Whenever she had approached the council on behalf of people looking for emergency accommodation, the cases had been dealt with “extreme speed and efficacy”.