On average, 80 families are entering homelessness per month in Dublin, according to the Director of the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive.
Eileen Gleeson is before the Oireachtas Committee on Housing to discuss the progress of the Rebuilding Ireland action plan.
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In her opening statement, she said that at the end of October last year, 813 family households were in emergency accommodation, commercial hotels and B&Bs.
Between then and end of June this year, 842 households were moved "to more appropriate accommodation" and a further 543 will be moved from July to September.
Noting that family hubs have featured in the media over the past few days, she said the intention is that they will be a first response for families that have no alternative to commercial hotels and Bed and Breakfasts.
Ms Gleeson said they are not a long-term housing solution, but will provide the support to families to work towards a more permanent type of accommodation.
Regarding the tenancy protection service which has been in place since 2014, she said it had been very successful.
Between January and March this year, 805 households contacted the service and, of those, 405 were at risk of losing their homes. 356 tenancies were protected.
She said the remainder are being worked with and none have entered homelessness.
Prevention teams located at Park Gate Hall in Dublin since February are working with families on a daily basis to assist them directly with their housing situation, she said.
Ms Gleeson said the number of rough sleepers in Dublin is 161.
She added that 23 people were recently located sleeping rough on Henry Street in Dublin who were non-Irish and who had recently arrived in the country.
They have returned to their countries of origin.
Authorities say they can increase social housing delivery
Local Authority representatives assured the committee that they can increase the delivery targets in relation to the provision of social housing in local authorities.
The committee was told that authorities will be able to provide housing as long as they know for what they are being asked.
It was pointed out to TD and Senators that local authorities have gone from zero to an acceleration of direct delivery in relation to housing.
The Executive Manager with responsibility for housing and community services, including the housing programme, in Dublin City Council, Tony Flynn, said delivery targets could be increased.
However, he said to speed up the programme, new building technologies were vitally important and there was a need to buy into that.
Concerns were raised by a number of local authority representatives over the number of vacant homes listed by the CSO versus reality.
The Director of Services for Housing in Waterford, Ivan Grimes, estimated that the official rates are overstated by 30-40% in areas.
Margaret Geraghty, who is the Director of Housing and Community Services at Fingal County Council, said the CSO indicated that there were 3,000 vacant properties in the area.
However following a comprehensive assessment by the council, it found there were only 300 properties vacant.
1,798 applications by homeowners over Pyrite concerns
There have been 1,798 applications by homeowners seeking remediation from the Pyrite Resolution Board up to June this year.
127 of those are currently under remediation and 101 have not been approved for work.
The figures were produced to the housing committee by the Chairperson Designate of the PRB, Jack Keyes.
Solidarity-People Before Profit TD Ruth Coppinger said her estate is one of three or four in Mulhuddart, in northwest Dublin, that are "riddled with pyrite".
She criticised the lack of advertising campaigns by the PRB thus far to explain the problem.
Sinn Féin TD Dessie Ellis expressed concerns over the cost of engineer surveys and requested that Mr Keyes ensure that the process be more helpful.
Mr Ellis's party collegue Louise O'Reilly said a lot of people were in limbo and she called on the Mr Keyes and the PRB to be more involved in the process.
Mr Keyes said his vision as chairperson of the board is to "try help people in this awful situation," subject to the balance of funding made available to the board.
