Mr. David Carroll:

On the issue of pressure on staff, a number of factors can help staff deal with vulnerabilities. This picks up on Ms Barry's comments in regard to health issues. If health budgets were restored to 2010 levels, this would allow us to invest in primary care interventions for the most vulnerable people and would have a significant effect on our ability to cope. It would help specifically with chronic mental health issues, physical health issues requiring access to district nursing and fast-tracking into methadone beds in order to stabilise drug use.

We are aware the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, DRHE, has been working its socks off in order to deal with the huge influx of homeless people who have come its way. The sheer number of people who have become homeless has been overwhelming for everybody. Now we need to take a step back and take a two to three year planning approach. We need to look at our projections over the next three years regarding the amount of temporary accommodation available to us and an interdepartmental approach must be taken towards providing the facilities and land for the provision of temporary accommodation.

The figures were provided earlier. Some 102 people are currently rough sleeping and 90 people were turned away last night on the freephone service and there are potentially 100 more to add to that. Based on what has happened in the past year, we need to be able to predict how many families and single people are likely to come into the system over the next two years, until housing supply can catch up. It is important we look strategically at what temporary accommodation is needed in the next two to three years.