Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his contribution and the report which I have read. Fundamentally, we are all committed to ending homelessness and doing what we can to ensure that happens. Clarity and transparency are important when dealing with homeless figures. What is the Department's response to Focus Ireland's view of the report set out this morning by Mr. Mike Allen when he described the report as "a communications strategy for bad news rather than a research strategy to resolve a problem". That is a serious charge, I would have thought, from a group which is on the front line in dealing with homelessness.

I have a couple of questions that I want to go through because we are restricted to five minutes and I would appreciate the Minister's response. The report states clearly that the Government intends to achieve capacity for a more detailed analysis. How will that be done given that less information will be available from quarterly reporting as opposed to monthly reporting? I wonder what is the rationale for the decision to move to quarterly reporting and how that will be done. If the Minister has fewer data that he is willing to publish, how will it be easier to look at trends and react proactively to remove people from risk areas?

Although I do not want to jump from one issue to another, I want to ask about the homeless inter-agency group which was set up in 2007. I have raised this issue by way of parliamentary question. I understand the group only met once in 2017. Has it been formally replaced? Is the Minister using other structures? If anything, I would have thought he would consider reactivating the inter-agency group. From my perspective, it is crucially important that we have more, not less, oversight.

Focus Ireland also takes issue with the fact that the report does not mention the overwhelming evidence of a growing shortage of properties available within the rent limits applied under the housing assistance payment, HAP. Will the limits be revised? I note work has been done in risk areas on stopping families falling into homelessness. Will the Minister elaborate on that work? I was not too sure when I heard Ms Eileen Gleeson mention on "Morning Ireland" that the Dublin Region Housing Executive did not regard HAP limits as a problem or one of the reasons people were falling into homelessness. I ask the Minister to address those couple of issues and I will come back in afterwards.