Mr. Brendan Kenny:

With regard to standards, we have a national quality standards framework which applies to all the NGO facilities in the country. That is monitored overall by the DRHE. We are now in the process of transferring that framework to other premises that are managed by private operators. We carry out inspections, however. We inspect the private premises probably more often than we do the NGOs. We also have this system where we respond almost immediately to any complaint that comes into us, perhaps within an hour. We also have in-reach services going into private premises. That can be like the HSE's social workers or our own in-house support workers. If they see anything wrong or out of place, they are asked to report it to our standards team straight away and that is quickly addressed.

In the past year or two, we brought back some retired staff to carry out inspections on a regular basis. We want that on a more professional basis. We are now in the process of undertaking a procurement process to get an independent company to do inspections of all hostel premises in the city, both NGOs and private. When that process is complete, which should be in the next month or two, we will have that company operating right through the city and all reports from those inspections will be published.

With regard to annual reports, we do a report every month to our councillors. It is circulated to media, and it is not just councillors in Dublin city but those in the three counties as well. There is no obligation for the DRHE to make up an annual report. There has, however, been a request to do so in more recent times so we will do that, absolutely. The previous organisation, the Dublin homeless agency, did it back in 2015. Therefore, we will have an annual report to be published hopefully at the end of March. We are under pressure because of Covid-19 but we will do that every year. We have all the information people are looking for. If there was any lack of transparency in recent months it is because we simply had to move administration staff to the front line. We could not keep up with the number of requests. Much of that information about finance and capital funding and so on is already on the Department's website. The committee will, however, have an annual report from DRHE before the end of March and one every year from then on.