Mr. Phil Thompson:

Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan asked what we plan to do. We have extra space in Tiglin now because we moved our women's programme to a new facility recently. An extra ten beds are available. Currently, we are partially renovating some of the other rooms and the extra space has come in handy in that sense. Ideally, we would like to use those rooms but there is a cost involved. We have the ability to help a further ten people. It costs approximately €30,000 per person per year in treatment at Tiglin. However, we need to ensure we do not up our numbers without upping the quality and standard to each person. It would be easy to simply fill those beds because the need is there. However, the quality and care offered to each person would diminish unless we improve staffing numbers at the same time. We are eager not to fall into that trap. I hope that answers the question.

A question was asked about support for housing. We do not get any support for housing at the moment. It goes back some time but we have been classified as an institution. People who are in institutions in the State cannot claim rent supplement and so on. We do not know how to change policy but we know how to help people in addiction. That is one of the reasons we are before the committee today seeking guidance and presenting this as a feasible solution.

We have links with prisons. We get letters on a weekly basis from people who are seeking to come to Tiglin for all manner of motivations. At one stage last year, 25% of our population had come from prison to Tiglin. It can go up and down but it is a consistent thing. We have talked about the links between homelessness and addiction but the links also cross over in this area. Mr. Murphy referred to criminal behaviour. Often people pick up charges and end up in prison because of that. This is really about joined-up thinking. We need to branch into probation and prison services for funding as well.

There was a question about nationalities. Most of the people we are working with currently are Irish nationals. However, of those we meet on the outreach bus, probably 30% are non-nationals. Those in the centre at present are all Irish nationals. In the past we might have had one or two per year who were eastern Europeans but they were not in the centre in great numbers for one reason or another. Perhaps it is a language issue. Also, they do not seem to link in to many services on the street. That might be another issue to be addressed.