Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for attending. I will share a typical message somebody sent to me:

Oh my god. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can't put into words how grateful I am. You have restored my security, my safety, my sanity. What you have done for me and my family is beyond words. I could barely eat. I could barely sleep. I had lost all sense of my own self security. You have restored it.

That is somebody who was renting and on a housing list for seven years. Through the witnesses’ work and the people who work with them, the person's tenancy has been secured. I had very little to do with it. I thank the public officials who have worked with me and responded to the queries that I have raised. I got to receive those nice messages, but they are the ones who do the work and it makes a difference. It is making a real difference in people’s lives. I appreciate it and I want them to know that it is appreciated.

Brendan Kenny is mentioned in the report and it is appropriate that we acknowledge him. I was probably one of the councillors going to him back in 2018 and telling him, for example, I had a family on a housing list in a rental property in Cabra, which was originally a local authority home. It was being sold. It would cost €70,000 to put them into a family hub for a year. Why would the local authority not buy it? It had not met its target that year. To be fair to him, he did it. He was always pragmatic. I want to acknowledge the service that he provided as a public servant and all the public servants who have learned from him and continue that great work and tradition.

There are roughly 1,000 families and individuals who have secured their home. Not all of them have been in Dublin Central, thankfully. The majority of the homelessness is in Dublin and the RTB report tells us that.

It is a nightmare for anybody to get a notice to quit at the moment because of the supply shortages. My first question is for the DRHE representative. How many homeless people have been referred to Garda stations? Were any referred this or last week? How many will be referred next week?