Ms Mary Hayes:

I thank Senator for his kind words on that case in Ranelagh. On the resourcing of the four local authorities in the Dublin region, it would be fair to say that we are reasonably resourced for what we are doing. The issue for us is we would love not to spend that money on emergency accommodation and to be spending it on supporting people into tenancies or supporting them from becoming homeless instead. The issue is not necessarily the envelope of money it is where it is going.

I could not agree more with the Senator in terms of giving people a local response in terms of homelessness. We have to be mindful of that in terms of the four Dublin local authorities because we deliver shared services. We are working on it, even in terms of the tenantin situ, that we are not giving people the impression that it is not here so do not come here, go over there. We are trying to get our message out a bit more clearly to people. Homeless HAP is managed centrally. The decision is made locally as to whether someone is suitable or eligible for it because we look at all the measures where possible if someone is at risk of homelessness. People do not need to come into us anymore to apply. There is an online application and a person would only need to come in to us if there was a literacy issue or something like that. Other than that, everything can be done online. Insofar as possible, if people can be dealt with locally, we are big fans of that as well.

As for the older person's scheme, it was a common-sense scheme that came up when we were doing our scheme in Dublin City Council at the time because for the first time, back then in 2017 and 2018, we started to see people coming from the private rented sector or who were coming up to retirement and had never had a housing application. That is how is started; the Senator has seen it work.