Ms Mary Hayes:

We are always counting the same thing. In the last week of a month, we are counting everybody in emergency accommodation that week. We cannot constantly count day by day. In some countries, the count is every five years, if the Deputy will believe it. It was agreed by academics and all the NGOs – everybody was involved in this at the time – that the methodology should involve counting everybody in emergency accommodation over a certain week in a month, and that is to allow for the fact that there is considerable movement. This does not mean we do not separately count every single new presentation. Every single new presentation over a month is recorded, and every exit over a period of a month is recorded, but the way we count how many people are in emergency accommodation is by counting the number in a certain week. It does not matter which count week is picked because-----