Mr. Seán Ó Siochrú:

Providing a non-judgmental, personal and supportive approach is not just a matter of respecting human beings and human rights and so on. In our examination of how people avoided becoming homeless they found the single most important thing they got from Focus Ireland was being treated properly. That built their confidence. They realised it was not their fault and it motivated them to persist, work and pursue this. That was the single major factor that enabled them to avoid homelessness. It is important and it is a practical point because otherwise motivation is lost, people become depressed and are unable to act to solve their own problems. Then they find themselves victimised even more because they are accused of being unable to solve their own problems. It helps to avoid homelessness, as well as to deal with being homeless. Some kind of training and capacity building for local authority and other staff would have to be added to guidelines.