Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the deputations for their comprehensive presentations. The reports are comprehensive as well. I want to raise one or two issues. In many cases, there is a housing problem and a health problem.

I want to deal with housing briefly. We brought in regulations to try to improve rented accommodation. They were welcome at the time. The purpose of one of the regulations we brought in was to get rid of bedsits. Did that change in the regulations contribute to more people ending up living on the street? If the deputations were in charge now, is there anything they would do to change it in any way? Many of the people who were in bedsits are people who want to live on their own. The regulations came in and more or less prescribed the minimum space for living accommodation. The regulations were brought because there were some appalling bedsits that needed to be sorted out. Is there any half-way house between both that would in any way contribute to improving the situation?

The second issue relates to the management of people who have mental health problems. I came across a case recently involving a person who had perfectly good support from family but the person had health issues. Basically, it had got to the point where a single carer could not be assigned to the person at any one time. Two people had to be there all the time. Carers had been assaulted by the individual and a package was put together by one of the agencies involved. The cost of the package was €134,000 per annum for that individual. How do the deputations deal with a difficult situation like that when there are health issues? This particular person could be in the southern part of the country one day but might turn up in Donegal two days later and end up in hospital. That is a difficult situation. How do we manage that?

Long ago, mental hospitals were used to deal with these problems. In many cases, they were used inappropriately. I came across one particularly difficult case. In 1956, the Army wrote to the parents of a person and said that if they did not collect their son, the Army would admit him to a mental hospital. Some 50 years later, the man was still in a mental hospital. That is one of the saddest cases I have come across. In fact, he did not really have a mental health problem, although he may have had a depression problem at the time. I do not want to go back down that road. The question is how we deal with that difficult situation.

We need to consider the whole approach in respect of people who are sleeping on the street. I remember being outside the Simon Community in Cork one night. I found eight or ten people trying to get in. It was 11 p.m. The hostel has rules and regulations and it was full. How do we deal with those people when there is an alcohol problem - it is a serious problem - to ensure they are not living on the street at night? I know many things were done. It is about the management of all of that. No matter how much assistance is given, it changes from day to day. They will change from day to day. How do we deal with that situation?

The homeless issue is one of the major problems we have. It comes back again to the whole issue of accommodation. Cork City Council had more than 1,800 single people looking for accommodation. Do the witnesses find any change by local authorities in the provision of accommodation for single people? The priority seems to have been that we build accommodation for families but we are not building enough appropriate accommodation for single people. Do the witnesses believe that we need to fast-track that whole issue to deal with this particular problem?