Mr. Ger Deering:

He talked about how once people are on HAP, their social housing needs are sometimes deemed to have been met. However, it is not actually that clear. Some local authorities have what they call a combined housing list whereby even if people enter into HAP, they remain on the housing list in some shape or form or perhaps where they were previously. What is possibly lacking sometimes is transparency as to where they are on the housing list. Other local authorities operate two completely separate lists and it is very hard to see how being on a HAP transfer list, as it is called, will ever entitle people to social housing.

The Deputy asked what the committee can do to assist my office. In that particular instance, we will be very happy to come back to members with our HAP report, which we will have available in the next couple of months. We would welcome an opportunity to discuss it with members and for them to put their considerable weight behind it, as a committee, in terms of trying to get local authorities to implement our recommendations. This will be slightly different for us from other cases on which we have worked. With the HSE, we could go to the CEO and get a commitment and buy-in. In this case, we need buy-in from 31 local authorities. There are different personalities in the various authorities. My staff and I have dealt with them regarding complaints. We find some of them are very open to listening and hearing, while others simply are not. This is an area where we would welcome input from the committee.

More generally, we would seek the support of the committee to have the recommendations in our reports implemented, whether they relate to an individual complaint or a systemic investigation and report. All I can do is issue a recommendation. Some of the members have dealt with me quite a bit in a previous life, where my decisions were legally binding. That is not the case in my current role. I am not seeking legally binding powers. I do not think they are necessary. What is necessary is to be able to come into the committee and discuss matters. For example, in future, my plan would be to come in here to discuss cases where we have organisations that decide not to implement our recommendations, discuss why that is so and perhaps discuss using some moral suasion to encourage people to implement those recommendations. We do not land the recommendations on the bodies. We give them an opportunity to comment and to feed into our investigations. We present considered views and recommendations after having heard from the complainants and the people concerned, obviously, as well as from the public body itself.