Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)

For the record, if a cavalier developer had notified me in 2021 about problems in the Peter McVerry Trust, the first thing I would have done is write to the Minister to bring that to his attention and ask him to look into it. That kind of information could have been very useful at the time.

I want to go back to the CCMA review. One of the things many of us on this committee want to do is satisfy ourselves and the public that systems failures will not be repeated. I want to put on the record that a huge amount of work has been done by the people in this room and elsewhere to fix the mess we all inherited. Therefore, none of my comments are to be taken against that spirit.

At the same time, I find it remarkable that in the period from 2019 through 2020 and 2021, red flags were not being raised either in the Department or by the Department in its communication with the DRHE. What I am interested in is not so much for people to comment on that period. What I am interested to know is whether there have been any changes in procedures either within the Department on the homeless side and the capital side, or in its relationship with the DRHE, to ensure that if such red flags were not raised, or were raised and were missed, they get caught the next time around. That is a very important question for us. The regulator and the other bodies are doing important work to fix what went wrong within the Peter McVerry Trust. I would hope there is some examination and potential learning within the Department and the DRHE, without prejudice to anybody's professional integrity, to ensure that if somebody has a concern, they are able to put their hand up in the room and say, “I think this is a problem and we need to intervene earlier.” Can the witnesses speak to that first?

Second, with respect to the CCMA review, were other key recommendations of that review accepted? For example, was there any look at the competitive nature of the tendering and how that sets organisations against each other, and also, crucially, at staffing costs?

This is, as Ms Hayes said, a very specialised nature of work involving working with people with very complex needs. They have to be highly trained and highly skilled and that was one concern both of the four chief executives when they wrote to the Minister in 2020 and 2021 and in terms of some of the challenges with the Peter McVerry Trust up until now.