Mr. Brendan Kenny:

I thank Senator Fitzpatrick. The issue with families has improved significantly. We are very grateful for the funding for the repair of voids. The HAP system has made a big difference also, as have the council's lettings. For example, in 2018, we had only 1,400 lettings in the entire year. In 2019, there were 2,000 lettings so the supply has been improving and that has made a difference. Obviously, Covid-19 has also made a difference but even before Covid, the situation with regard to families was beginning to stabilise and numbers were reducing.

Touching on the issue of private emergency accommodation, the reality is that just before Covid we had a crisis. We needed emergency accommodation but Covid very much worsened that crisis. We had to empty some of the hostels in the city. We had to thin out most of the hostels for social distancing purposes and so on. We had to very quickly acquire hostels in the city as otherwise more people would have been sleeping and dying on the street. We managed to have only three deaths from Covid during the whole of 2020. I believe we would have had many more deaths if we had not done that. Our only option was to go out and source accommodation in the private sector. We know that the opportunities that came to us may have resulted in high concentrations in the areas where there was already a high concentration but we had to do that. We believe the vast majority of these premises are managed very well by private operators. They are being very carefully monitored.

The Senator mentioned bouncers. The only reason there is a bouncer on the street in question is that we received many complaints about problems outside the buildings and we asked a private operator to put on some security. That made a difference. The actual operation and management of the premises is not carried out by bouncers and security.

With regard to the deaths, unfortunately, deaths are occurring everywhere. We have had more deaths in the NGO-managed premises than in the private emergency accommodation. Deaths are occurring in all premises. We are concerned at the increase in the number of deaths. There was certainly a surge from July until the end of 2020 and also in January of this year.

The bottom line in respect of emergency accommodation is that we just had to get it. It was an emergency. We have a good situation now, with plenty of beds to spare in the system. We would like to think that as time moves on over the next year or so, we will eliminate some of the homeless premises - perhaps those on North Frederick Street - and operate in a more strategic way. We may convert some of these premises into own-door apartments. The reality, however, is that we had a major emergency in 2020. We had to do as we did and we are managing. We will also commission a company to inspect all our hostel premises in the city on a regular basis. We will have those inspections in place soon.