Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all our guests for being here with us. Today's presentations are encouraging. The figures are not where we want them to be but are encouraging nonetheless. It is really good to see that the preventive scheme is working, that homeless HAP is being used as a successful intervention for families and that the eviction moratorium the Government introduced during level 5 is working. It is interesting to hear Professor O'Sullivan talk about how he would like to see the moratorium extended beyond 15 March, which is the current plan. I would be really interested to hear how long he would recommend it be extended for, whether we need a whole lot more time or whether quite a short stint might give us a little breathing space in being able to slow down the entry into emergency accommodation.

Housing First is very much the long-term solution when it comes to tackling this problem, but we also need to look at the short-term solutions, one of which is emergency accommodation. I know that Deputy Ó Broin has talked about this as well. From my perspective as a Dub, I was quite taken aback that people from outside Dublin featured in the "RTÉ Investigates" exposé were not getting the same treatment and the same access to beds as people from Dublin. The Minister tells us there is an average of 40 empty beds in emergency accommodation most nights. It was also quite disheartening to hear people say they would rather be in a tent on the banks of the canal than in emergency accommodation because they felt safer. I wonder what we need to do - what inspections we need to carry out, what actions we need to take or what support we need to introduce - to make people feel safer in emergency accommodation.

I watched the "RTÉ Investigates" exposé with the same feeling in the pit of my stomach as everybody else and I agreed with pretty much everything that was said in it. One time I did disagree, however, was when it was said how every homeless person needed greater access to a key worker. It is not that I necessarily disagreed with that; I just thought, what if we looked at it a little differently? It was felt that the key worker needed to be there to help people in homelessness navigate through the bureaucracy of finding permanent accommodation. Is there a way that we can look at eliminating that bureaucracy instead to empower people and to help them get there more quickly? I would be particularly interested to hear Ms Leahy's views on that.