Dr. Austin O'Carroll:

I would be delighted for the committee to include any of the findings it wants in its report. I am interested in getting the recommendations into action and I would be delighted to do anything I can do to support the committee.

I cannot comment on the double social welfare payment. This is where we need to have coroners' findings. We cannot comment on the causes of death in mortality reports. However, a critical incident analysis or a rapid review of a cluster of deaths would have helped to get information on that if they were in place, which would have enabled us. The suggestion is that the double payment would have meant that they had more money and that led to an increase in overdoses due to a greater availability of alcohol or drugs. I would be careful about jumping to presumptions because a lot of things were happening during Covid such as increased isolation. The comment has already been made that the Covid response from the DRHE and the HSE had a fantastic outcome.

The rate of Covid was half that in the general population. Up to 50% of homeless people in France were affected, whereas in Ireland that percentage was only 2.3%. It was a fantastic response. There are many factors that need to be looked at before jumping to that single presumption.