Mr. Peter Tyndall:

I will take a specific example about emergency accommodation and medical cards. When issues are brought to our attention, we raise them with the Department and the HSE to ensure they are addressed.

They are addressed in respect of the issues that are brought to us. As new emergency accommodation centres come on stream, then the issues may well arise again. The Senator and many of his colleagues in the Dáil bring complaints via my office and we are able to raise them also but it would help us to have a broader picture if they wish to engage with us in that way also. I did not intend to suggest that everything is absolutely splendid but just to say that as and when we raise complaints, they are addressed. Sometimes it will be individual ones and it may be that the systemic issues are not being properly dealt with. I will happily continue to work on those until we get them addressed. We find that things pop up as issues as the system is extended. As for the issues we are dealing with at the moment, we get fewer complaints and issues raised in respect of the older, more established centres. At present, the emergency accommodation is generating the principal additional work for us. Problems continue to crop up in some of the newer centres that have been addressed in older centres.