Professor Eoin O'Sullivan:

Deputy Ó Broin actually had two questions. One was on housing. There is a reasonably ambitious target to achieve 663 tenancies by the end by the end of this year. Housing First needs to be expanded. I sent an updated slide this morning to highlight that this is a clear evidence-based policy that works very effectively, particularly for those with a complex need who have been sold a part-time programme. This is a tried and tested cost-effective way of managing this issue.

The difficulty is the supply of one-bedroom apartments. We probably need a relaxation of the rule that Housing First tenants are only allocated a one-bedroom unit. We need some flexibility on that. There is clearly a distribution issue if a person is given a two-bedroom apartment when other people are on the waiting list. A core element of Housing First is not just the housing but the reconnection of individuals to their extended families, their communities and having space for people to stay overnight and reconnecting with children. I urge some flexibility on that. I am not aware of any evidence from the big Housing First evaluations in France and Canada. There is fear that if people have a spare bedroom, old acquaintances from the street or shelters will want to come in and that may disrupt the Housing First tenancy. There are anecdotal stories about that, but there is no hard evidence that that is the case.

On a moratorium, before the Covid pandemic, a number of people suggested that we needed a period to slow down the flow of households into emergency accommodation and that that required rebalancing the rights of landlords and tenants. It was a hypothesis at that stage as to whether it would make a difference. As a result of the Covid pandemic, we now know that it has made a very significant difference, particularly for families and less so for single people. The reason that single people are still coming in is that they were not in tenancies and rather were doubled up or sharing. The pandemic exposed that. It would be good if we had a period of time so that Mr. Kenny and his colleagues could in some way manage things to stop the extraordinary flow every day into emergency accommodation. We now have very clear evidence that it has worked. The current period will end on 15 March. There would be a very strong justification for extending that moratorium, irrespective of the Covid pandemic.