Mr. David Kelly:

Regarding the Deputy's comments on oversight, one of the issues looked at by the Department, in light of this, was a review of the funding arrangements. As the Secretary General said, our payments are funnelled through local authorities. They organise homeless services on a regional basis. We have a management group in each region and a consultative committee, which includes the local authorities and other State agencies. Those groups are responsible for deciding how local authorities need to deliver emergency services, homeless services and service-related health supports.

I will go back to some of the issues the Deputy referred to that have become prominent in some of the discourse after the issues at the Peter McVerry Trust. It became apparent that some NGOs were including fundraising income in tender costs. One of the things we have looked at with the CCMA - the review was led by the CCMA but the Department participated - was to change that procedure so that the State would fully fund all services and not require local approved housing bodies, AHB, to provide supplementary income. That will improve the situation.

We have made a couple of other changes which I think are really important and they have been approved by the Minister recently. The first one is to look at the overhead costs faced by AHBs. To manage its services effectively, each AHB needs an overhead of finance function and an oversight function and as we see at the Peter McVerry Trust, ensuring compliance with regulations, for example. That overhead cost will be increased. It was 5% under the old arrangements and it will be increased to support the central functions of AHBs. It will ensure that they operate effectively and that they are managed effectively.

Another one of the main things we will do is fund maintenance. Previously, one of the concerns raised by AHBs was that the funding arrangements in place with local authorities did not allow for repairs or maintenance to be done on emergency accommodation. It is obviously really important that these facilities are maintained to provide quality emergency accommodation and that they meet all the safety requirements. With this review, we are looking at a number of changes but three of the key ones are ensuring that we fully fund services. We never required AHBs to fund, but the nature of some of the arrangements in place-----