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.

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.