John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to mention another issue which may not appear to be connected but is. A PhD student in my constituency came to me recently with a very detailed and interesting questionnaire about our housing stock. I thought it was about social housing stock, but it was about housing stock in a particular part of the constituency from the point of view of people being able to remain in their homes in the long term. As we know, new home builds have completely different building regulations. The survey included things like stair lifts, getting wheelchairs indoors and the fact the required width of houses built in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s is nothing like it is now. The Government retrofit plan has been launched today. There is a retro aspect to making houses livable, in particular older houses, and making it easier for carers to care for people, as opposed to houses having large steps which require ramps to be installed and so on. It is something that the witnesses could make a very rich contribution to. Housing is associated with the caring issue. Do the witnesses have any views on that?