Mr. Declan Dunne:

I do not know what example that was going to be. The Deputy asked why. In the course of my career I was on the board of Ballymun Regeneration for ten years as a community representative. We know what the lived experience was in that area, what a community it is, what has been achieved and how much it has been transformed since. Huge investment has been put in. The State and everyone involved in this is trying to solve it and everyone understands, but there are two reasons that come to mind for why we find ourselves in this situation. The pressure to deliver is massive. It is so important because people just do not have a house. We are rushing to do the minimum because it is so badly needed. The second is a lack of understanding. If I may say so, it is clear the Deputy has that understanding. That is why my opening statement spoke of our mission of social justice and a human right to housing because housing is fabulously important. In terms of social determinants of health and well-being, housing is the single biggest issue to improve the health of a family and individual but it is not the only one. As for all the things the Deputy is talking about, there is not really the understanding. It is only when you have lived in a community where such things are absent that it becomes so crystal clear what the impact is on mental health and youth development. Constantly, we look at the families that we are putting in these homes and thinking that in ten years' time they will all be teenagers so the question is what are we doing in that regard. The pressure to deliver is one of the causes and it is understandable, as we have to get people into homes somehow, but the second thing is that lack of understanding. I would argue that this is a bad decision economically if we do not do these things properly.

Ours just happens to be that kind of organisation with six homeless services, 17 childcare units and all that kind of stuff, so we invest in that and we believe in it. We are working to become a trauma-informed organisation. A vast majority of staff are trained in that to understand what might be going on for people, what might be triggering them and how we in our interaction might have a positive engagement with them. It is about basic resources and that focus on early years and after school services and the difference that makes. More than half our tenants are at work but many of our tenants are lone parents and we all know the poverty and difficulties they are facing and so on. What is going to happen for those children? There is some good news and that is the quality of the housing provided by these bodies and local authorities is really fabulous, so no child in local authority or AHB social housing is embarrassed to bring their friends home from school. They probably or possibly have the nicest house. I would support the Deputy in trying to build this understanding that it is not just about housing and estate management but it is about communities and understanding the life cycle that people go through because it will be a very false economy if we do not.