Mr. Mike Allen:

We do not have a decided position on that. We have seen proposals to set up an independent standards authority for homeless accommodation. The cost of that is quite worrying. Moreover, building such a structure implies there will be a long-term need for this sort of thing. We at Focus Ireland find that deeply worrying. The Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, has been proposed for this role. We are open to that. Of the existing organisations that carry out this work, HIQA is probably the best placed to do this. However, we do not think HIQA's standards should apply to this because hubs are not clinical facilities.

However, it would be good to employ a body with that experience without incurring the overheads involved in setting up a new organisation.