Mr. Brendan Kenny:

Obviously, we are concerned at the increase in the numbers of deaths. A very intensive review is being carried out through the HSE by Dr. Austin O'Carroll which we will publish. It is difficult to know exactly how best to try to reduce that figure. We are not sure if anxiety and issues around Covid have made a difference. There have been a number of suicides. Mental health and addiction are the key issues as far as we are concerned. They will have to be addressed and we will have to do that better than we have done before. We are working very closely with the HSE on that.

On the RTÉ programme, we are on the same wavelength as the Minister. I have spoken to the Minister a number of times on it. It is a difficult issue. In the past month, between 60 and 70 individuals have been accommodated in emergency accommodation in Dublin who have come straight up from the country. There is a significant increase. This is all happening when there is a restriction on travel. We have to be careful about those already in our hostels. If someone were to come into a hostel with Covid, the disease could spread to everybody in it.

Every local authority has its own responsibility. We changed the system at the beginning of this year. We eliminated all the one-night beds, which is a good thing, but it means that we need to carry out an assessment. We try to prevent people from going in. We get parents contacting us. A mother in the west was highly critical of the DRHE for accommodating her son so quickly in Dublin when she really wanted him back. It is a tricky issue, but nobody is left homeless if there is a risk to anybody. We are lucky that at the moment because we have beds. We turned away people years ago because we had no beds, but there are plenty of beds now. If somebody is genuinely homeless and we have reasonable evidence of that, he or she will get a bed and we will do the assessment afterwards. Nobody is being turned away at the moment.

Before the outbreak of Covid, we had started a review of the freefone service. That got stalled somewhat because of the pandemic. We will reactivate it. There will be significant changes in the freefone service in the coming months. We are conscious of the trauma of staff there. They take over 200 calls each day and it is a very difficult job. We have managed our way through the pandemic very well. Some of the DRHE staff contracted Covid and had to be isolated. We have had to move staff from administration duties to the front line. There will be significant changes in the freefone service. We apologise for the incident that was shown on RTÉ. That should not have happened.