Mr. Mike Allen:

I will just outline the context. Over a year ago, through our contacts - all of us work very closely with the local authorities throughout the country - we heard rumours and talk about the Department being at an advanced stage of bringing forward amendments to the housing legislation relating to homelessness. Our CEO, Mr. Dennigan, along with Mr. Stanley and others on the national homelessness action committee, asked the Department for a regular briefing on this undertaking. In October, it produced a briefing on what was being considered. It has some very positive things in it that we had been looking for in respect of prevention and the best interests of the child.

The substance of the briefing was that groups of people who could not prove habitual residence, etc., would be not eligible for emergency accommodation. It also proposed that a new agency, in addition to IPAS and the local authorities, would be established to provide, on a humanitarian non-legal basis, emergency shelter for these people who become unsheltered and so on. We were asked to comment on that. I think that all the organisations on the national homelessness action committee, NHAC, and others who saw the documentation came in and said it was a very bad idea and goes against everything in all of the positive parts of the homeless policy over many years. The Department then said that it was putting that to one side. Two things follow on from that which are worth mentioning.