Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the work they and their organisations do every day. I also thank them for attending the meeting today. My background is as a city councillor and I am from Dublin Central where the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is headquartered. Ms Stakem spoke about her work every day and the effect housing poverty has on people's lives. I share her concern and understand that as well. It is the most devastating and undermining thing that can happen to an individual or a family. I am happy to tell her that the new Government is committed to delivering on the strategic changes she referred to and the changes in respect of affordable rental, affordable purchase and investment in more public and social housing. For the purpose of today's meeting, I will talk about the HAP review because there will be an interim period for rolling out an affordable rental scheme and an affordable purchase scheme as well as the building of public housing.

With regard to the survey that was conducted, will the witnesses clarify when that was completed and how many people participated in it? Were they all Threshold clients or was there a wider base? Regarding the inspections of the properties, was the problem with that localised to a specific number of local authorities? If I can get those answers quickly, I will refer back to the witnesses.