A powerful committee of MPs has damned the record of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive in tackling homelessness in Ulster.

The public accounts committee branded the NIHE's approach as "inadequate" and "complacent" and said it had experienced "a breakdown of competence".

In a report published on Friday, the committee noted that homelessness levels in Northern Ireland are proportionately higher than in other parts of the United Kingdom and have been rising steadily since 1988.

The NIHE has a budget of around £24 million a year, which includes Housing Benefit payments administered on behalf of Northern Ireland's Department for Social Development .

But it was not until 2002 that the agency adopted a formal strategy for managing homelessness services.

"Planning for the provision of homelessness services has been inadequate, and NIHE took 14 years to develop its first formal homelessness strategy," said the report.

"This shows a disturbing degree of complacency about meeting its statutory duty towards some of the most vulnerable members of society.

"It is our view that, during this period, there was a breakdown of competence in dealing with homelessness, because a proper framework for getting to grips with the problem had not been devised.

"The department is culpable for not taking sufficient action to ensure that NIHE produced a strategy at the outset, and for not monitoring service standards closely enough to ensure that real improvements were being delivered."

Insensitivity

The committee also said that there was an excessive reliance on bed and breakfast accommodation, which was "unsuitable and expensive".

"Case example evidence revealed some extraordinarily insensitive mismatches between homeless persons' special needs and the accommodation with which they were provided," said the report.

"We are deeply concerned that NIHE took no action in relation to one particular B&B establishment that had been the subject of repeated complaints from residents about drug-dealing on the premises, and where hygiene standards were poor."

Committee chairman Edward Leigh said the number of families spending long periods in B&B accommodation was "unacceptable".

"I am very concerned that it took NIHE so long to devise a strategy for getting to grips with the growing homelessness problem and that the department exercised so little control over the quality of service being provided with the money it grants annually to NIHE to tackle it," he said.

"The improvements built into the homelessness strategy are encouraging, if long overdue.

"It is essential that NIHE and the department both maintain a high level of commitment if proper prevention and control measures are to be brought to bear on this most difficult, and complex, social problem."