Ms Mary Hayes:

On Housing First, I disagree with Deputy Ó Broin on the threshold being too high. We have a very specific target group. If we see the same faces turning up in a rough sleeper count in Dublin over successive counts, those people are our top priority. We balance the Housing First lettings. In Housing First, we also see people who have been long entrenched in emergency accommodation. We do not discriminate; both are considered for Housing First.

On the issue of being able to provide more housing for single adults, it is just a matter of doing the lettings through our allocations. Lighter supports are available through the support to live independently, SLI, scheme and various other things. The overall message is that we need to move single people out of emergency accommodation, irrespective of whether it is through Housing First or other means.

To respond to the question no the Health Research Board, we welcome the HRB's report on premature mortality. We were collating data, but as we are not health researchers in the DRHE, we are not in a position to give recommendations whereas the HRB is. We engaged very early on with Ena Lynn and Suzi Lyons from the HRB in relation to our work but we are very happy that is now in the right home. They will make recommendations on preventable deaths, which is something the DRHE could not do. What we can do is operationalise those recommendations. We have in place in Dublin a critical incident review and a HSE co-ordinator who is working with us in the DRHE. We do whatever we can. Some 46 automated external defibrillator, AED, machines have gone in across the services. Naloxone has been rolled out in private emergency accommodation and to the NGOs. I thank the staff who are saving lives every day, intervening in overdoses in hostels, etc. It is extremely traumatising for the staff and everybody else involved. The HRB's report on premature mortality has lessons for us all in terms of what we can do. We very much welcome it.