Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In the past when I was trying to help people in that situation, there did not seem to be the same amount of pressure that is being put on people now to move out. We all know there was nowhere for people to go; they could not find anywhere. They were able to access homeless housing assistance payment, HAP, for example, when in direct provision but even with that, they still could not find anywhere because of the scarcity of accommodation. Over the past while, and most of this is from anecdotal evidence, residents are finding they are being put under undue pressure to move into homeless accommodation which is probably a step down from the direct provision accommodation, which is not great to begin with. Is there any advice I can give those people? Are there advocacy groups that can help people in that situation?