Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the groups for coming in. We greatly appreciate the work and heavy lifting that they are doing. I am very familiar with the work of Mr. Moynihan and ALONE. Over the last two years, a significant worry has been the emergence of older people coming into emergency accommodation and homelessness. In many instances, it is due to a breakdown in relationships. Given the perspective of the witnesses from ALONE, we need to see a dynamic change in how we address homelessness. Normally, we associate homelessness with young people but particularly in rural Ireland, I am seeing that it is bringing many psychological issues and mental health issues too. Would it be fair to say that we need to reconfigure how we deal with homelessness for older people?