Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have two sets of questions that I will deal with separately.

When the homeless figures for March were published as many as 578 adults and children were removed from the list. As a committee, we invited the Minister to come here to provide us with the detail as to why those people were removed from the list and allow us to properly interrogate the matter. He said that he could not meet us at that time because he was waiting for more detailed information. He also told us that two reports were going to be produced, one by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, DRHE, and another by the inter-agency group, and that when their reports were completed he would come in here to talk to us about the issue of alleged miscategorisation. We raised the issue again after April had passed and then we organised today's meeting. In the first instance, the people who requested this meeting want it to be about the miscategorisation, as the Minister called it, of 875 adults and children. Yet nowhere in either of the reports that has been presented to us has the Minister given us the information that we sought two months ago. We asked for the figure of 875 adults and children to be broken down into the number of adults and children in each of the affected local authority areas, and the types of accommodation and arrangements they were in at the point at which it was decided to remove them from the monthly reporting lists. Such information was requested as it would allow us to interrogate whether the measures were appropriate. Was the Minister misinformed about the contents of these reports that led him to tell us that we could have an informed discussion when the reports were put in front of us? Has something changed? Why does the Minister still refuse to give us the information? I refer him to two or three parliamentary questions requesting the information but to no avail. When will he give us the crucial information? Such information will allow us to do our job and scrutinise his actions as a Minister.

I have questions on the report and I will ask them later if I have time.