Strengthening Ireland’s Response to Homelessness: The Case for Improving Digital Integration and Data Coordination in Ireland

Executive Summary

This policy brief draws on findings from the Problem Phase Living Lab sessions conducted in Ireland as part of the continuing COMHOM project, an EU-funded initiative focused on improving responses to homelessness through digital transformation, data integration, and strengthened monitoring and evaluation systems. While the broader Living Lab explored multiple dimensions of homelessness, this brief specifically examines the digital practices of homelessness service providers.

Current monitoring systems primarily capture individuals accessing emergency accommodation funded by local authorities. As a result, significant segments of individuals experiencing homelessness remain underrepresented in official data, which limits the ability of policymakers and service providers to fully understand the scale and complexity of homelessness in Ireland.

Findings from frontline service providers highlight persistent fragmentation in digital systems, inconsistent use of monitoring and evaluation practices, and limited interoperability between the national Pathway Accommodation and Support System (PASS) system and provider-level Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms. These challenges contribute to duplicated data entry, reduced data quality, and weakened coordination across services, ultimately constraining evidence-informed decision-making.

This policy brief argues that strengthening homelessness responses in Ireland requires a more integrated and coordinated digital infrastructure, supported by standardised approaches to data collection, monitoring and evaluation. A unified and interoperable system would enhance the accuracy and completeness of homelessness data, improve service coordination, and support more effective policy development.

Developing integrated digital systems and consistent monitoring frameworks would enable better identification of homelessness trends, strengthen prevention and intervention strategies, and support improved outcomes for individuals experiencing homelessness in Ireland.

Key Messages Arising from this Research include:

• Digital tools, including the national PASS system and CRM platforms, are widely used by homelessness service providers but remain fragmented and poorly integrated.
• Limited interoperability and data‑sharing restrictions hinder coordinated care and efficient service delivery.
• Variability in monitoring and evaluation practices undermines consistent outcome tracking and evidence‑informed decision‑making.
• There is strong demand among providers for a unified, interoperable digital platform to reduce duplication and improve data quality.
• Service Providers seek access to comparative and outcome‑focused data to inform service design and policy learning.
• Insufficient training, IT support, and communication on system changes constrain providers’ effective use of digital tools.

Background

Homelessness is a critical and growing social issue in Ireland. Under the Housing Act 1988¹, homelessness is defined as the absence of accommodation that a person can reasonably occupy or reliance on emergency or institutional accommodation due to a lack of alternatives. Official statistics are primarily derived from the national Pathway Accommodation and Support System (PASS)², which records individuals and families accessing local authority-funded emergency accommodation.

Despite sustained policy efforts, including the recent Government ‘Delivering Homes, Building Communities: An Action Plan on Housing Supply and Targeting Homelessness’ (2025-2030) housing strategy³, homelessness has continued to rise. Over 17,500 people were recorded in emergency accommodation in April 2026⁴, the highest level on record. However, these figures capture only part of the broader phenomenon. Many individuals experiencing “hidden homelessness”, including those staying with friends or family or living in overcrowded or unstable housing, are not reflected in official data⁵.

Research highlights that Ireland’s homelessness statistics are shaped by definitional and methodological limitations. Studies such as The Politics of Counting Homelessness: The Case of Ireland⁶ show that significant groups remain underrepresented in official counts, limiting the ability to fully understand the scale and composition of homelessness. At the European level, frameworks such as the European Typology of Homelessness and Housing Exclusion (ETHOS)⁷ highlight the broader spectrum of housing exclusion, including those in insecure, inadequate, or temporary living situations. However, many of these categories are not fully captured in national data systems, including in Ireland, limiting the ability to reflect the full scale and diversity of homelessness⁸.

While Ireland benefits from a centralised data system through PASS, important challenges remain. Fragmentation across systems, including the use of multiple provider-level databases alongside PASS, as well as variations in data entry, access, and reporting practices, contribute to inconsistencies in monitoring and evaluation⁹. These limitations reduce the ability to track outcomes, evaluate interventions, and support coordinated service delivery¹⁰.

These challenges are not unique to Ireland. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) highlights that differences in definitions, data sources, and methodologies across countries often result in an underestimation of homelessness and limit evidence-based policymaking¹¹. Similarly, FEANTSA[i] emphasises that existing data systems across Europe tend to capture only the most visible forms of homelessness, underrepresenting those in insecure or inadequate housing¹². The Lisbon Declaration on Combatting Homelessness further underscores the need for reliable and harmonised data systems to support monitoring and policy coordination¹³. This policy brief focuses specifically on the digital practices of homelessness service providers in Ireland, examining how current data systems support or constrain effective monitoring, evaluation, and service coordination. Strengthening data integration, improving access, and harmonising monitoring frameworks are critical to enabling more effective, coordinated, and evidence-based homelessness policy in Ireland.

The COMHOM Project

COMHOM is a three-year European project designed to strengthen homelessness responses through digitalisation, social innovation, and improved monitoring and evaluation practices. The project involves five participating countries: Finland, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain. Through a participatory Living Lab and soft systems approach, the project engages multiple stakeholders, including people with lived experience, service providers, policymakers, and researchers, to co-define problems and co-design digital solutions.

A key objective of COMHOM is to develop a standardised monitoring and evaluation framework supported by digital tools that enable harmonised data collection and secure information sharing across organisations. These tools aim to support practitioners, service managers, and policymakers by improving access to reliable data and enabling evidence-based decision-making.

Phase 1 of the project focused on defining the homelessness problem through stakeholder engagement. In Ireland, interviews were conducted with service providers, policymakers, and individuals with lived experience of homelessness. This policy brief focuses specifically on insights from frontline service providers, whose perspectives provide valuable understanding of how homelessness is managed operationally within the service system.

Phases 2 & 3 are continuing.

What did the research explore?

This brief draws on findings from the Problem Phase of the COMHOM project in Ireland, based on engagement with twenty-eight homelessness service agencies through working sessions and interviews. The analysis focuses specifically on the perspectives of frontline homelessness service providers and their use of digital tools in service delivery.

What were the main findings?

• Service providers highlight duplication of effort due to fragmented digital tools (PASS vs their CRM system), reflecting inefficiencies across case management and reporting systems.
• Service providers note that monitoring and evaluation practices vary widely, making it difficult to compare outcomes or assess long-term effectiveness.
• Limited access to digital systems is identified as a barrier to collaboration, restricting timely decision-making and coordinated care.
• Staff emphasise the need for digital training and IT support, citing gaps in skills and system knowledge that impact data accuracy and reporting.
• Service providers point to under-recording of hidden homelessness, noting that people in temporary or insecure housing often remain invisible in official data.
• Service providers report increasing pressures due to rising homelessness, which strain existing systems and workflows.
• Challenges remain in tracking individuals after exit, volume of interventions, and quality of life post-homelessness.

Policy Implications

The Bottom Line

Although digital tools such as PASS and provider-level CRM systems are widely used in homelessness services in Ireland, fragmentation and limited interoperability reduce their effectiveness. As a result, data is often duplicated, inconsistently recorded, and not fully used to support coordinated service delivery or decision-making.

As such, there is a need to move beyond simply using digital systems towards ensuring they are better integrated, consistently applied, and supported by adequate training and organisational capacity. Without this, gaps in data quality, monitoring, and coordination will continue to limit service effectiveness.

Furthermore, if policymakers and service providers have a clearer understanding of how digital systems are being used in practice and where gaps exist, they will be better positioned to target investment, improve system design, and support more effective and evidence-informed homelessness services.

Policy Recommendations

• The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (DHLGH), in collaboration with Local Authorities and the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) should mandate the consistent use of the national PASS system across all publicly funded homelessness service providers, with compliance embedded in service level agreements.
• Investment should be prioritised to develop an integrated digital infrastructure that enables interoperability between PASS and provider-level CRM systems, supported by a “single point of data entry” approach to reduce duplication and administrative burden.
• A mandatory digital induction training programme, supported by dedicated IT support structures, should be introduced for all frontline homelessness service staff to ensure consistent system use, data quality, and technical capacity.
• Data governance and inter-agency data sharing should be strengthened through clear protocols aligned with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), enabling secure and consistent information exchange across stakeholders.
• A national monitoring and evaluation framework should be implemented to assess both system performance and service delivery outcomes, using defined indicators and aggregated data from PASS and related systems.
• Homelessness service providers should strengthen the use of digital systems (PASS/CRM) to systematically monitor and evaluate individual client outcomes, including housing progress, service engagement, and support effectiveness, to improve case management and enable evidence-based decision-making.
• Access to aggregated and comparative service-level data should be enabled across the sector to support service improvement, coordination, and evidence-informed policy development.

                Proposed Implementation Roadmap

Acknowledgment

This policy brief has been developed as part of the COMHOM project, co-funded by the European Union under the European Social Fund (ESF+). Simon Communities of Ireland would like to sincerely thank all COMHOM partner countries for their valuable support, guidance, and collaboration throughout the research process.

Special thanks are extended to all participants and community stakeholders who generously gave their time to contribute to this phase of the COMHOM Project, as well as to the individuals and organisations who supported and facilitated the fieldwork.

Please cite this policy brief as: Ogunjemilusi, K (2026). Strengthening Ireland’s Response to Homelessness: The Case for Improving Digital Integration and Data Coordination in Ireland. A policy brief based on the Problem Phase of the COMHOM project on digital systems in homelessness services. Simon Communities of Ireland. Available from: https://www.simon.ie/publication-type/comhom/

Funded by the European Union under the ESF+. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. 

References

¹ Housing Act 1988 (Act No. 28/1988). Government of Ireland.

² Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. (2026). Homelessness Data. Government of Ireland. Available at: Government of Ireland – Homelessness Data

³Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. (2025). Delivering homes, building communities 2025–2030: An action plan on housing supply and targeting homelessness. Government of Ireland. https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-housing-local-government-and-heritage/campaigns/delivering-homes-building-communities-2025-2030-an-action-plan-on-housing-supply-and-targeting-homelessness/

⁴ Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE). (2026). Homeless Update No. 72: February 2026. Dublin City Council. DRHE Homeless March Figures

⁵ Deleu, H., Schrooten, M., & Hermans, K. (2023). Hidden Homelessness: A Scoping Review and Avenues for Further Inquiry. Social Policy and Society, 22(2), 282–298. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1474746421000476

⁶ Davret, J. (2026). The Politics of Counting Homelessness: The Case of Ireland. Housing Policy Debate, 36(1), 3–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2025.2599125

⁷ FEANTSA. (2007) European Typology of Homelessness and Housing Exclusion (ETHOS). Available at: https://www.feantsa.org/ download/ethos2484215748748239888.pdf

⁸Baptista, I., Benjaminsen, L., Busch-Geertsema, V. & Pleace, N. (2017) Family Homelessness in Europe. Brussels: FEANTSA

⁹ Davret, J. (2026). The Politics of Counting Homelessness: The Case of Ireland. Housing Policy Debate, 36(1), 3–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2025.2599125

¹⁰ Bairéad. C & Norris. M. (2023) Report on Errors in Data on Homeless Emergency Accommodation Usage in Dublin (2023)
Dublin Region Homeless Executive commissioned report. Available at https://www.homelessdublin.ie/content/files/Report-on-Errors-in-Data-on-Homeless-Emergency-Accommodation.pdf?v=1711638324

¹¹ OECD (2019) Better data and policies to fight homelessness in the OECD. OECD Publishing, Paris. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2019/11/better-data-and-policies-to-fight-homelessness-in-the-oecd_0c635c9b/0eef075a-en.pdf

¹² FEANTSA (2023) 8th Overview of Housing Exclusion in Europe 2023. Brussels: FEANTSA. Available at: https://www.feantsa.org/files/Themes/Overview/2023/Rapport_EN.pdf

¹³ European Commission, European Parliament, & Council of the European Union. (2021). Lisbon Declaration on the European Platform on Combating Homelessness. https://www.feantsa.org/files/Observatory/Journals/Volume-18/V18-1/EJH_18-1_A08.pdf

¹⁴ COMHOM Project. (2025). Pioneering Data-Driven Solutions to Combat Homelessness Across Europe. COMHOM Project       

For more information, contact the researcher:

Kenny Ogunjemilusi, PhD kenny.ogunjemilusi@simoncommunity.com

Research Lead, COMHOM Project, Simon Communities of Ireland
About Simon Communities of Ireland

We lead campaigns advocating for effective policies and legislation to tackle homelessness, drawing on evidence, best practices, and the lived experiences of people accessing services. Our work spans local, national, and European levels, focusing on practical, sustainable solutions to address homelessness directly. Our mission is to end homelessness across Ireland.

[i] FEANTSA is the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless.