Ms Rosemarie Tobin:

It is important to state that the Department does not have a role in tendering for homeless services or in the contacts and the negotiations relating to SLAs. That is all the statutory responsibility of the local authorities. When the local authorities enter into an agreement with an NGO or any service provider, they let the Department know because we have to confirm that funding will be made available for that. We recoup the local authorities for the funding they spend, but it is the local authority's relationship and it would have been the local authority's tender at the time. As far as I know - someone can correct me if I am wrong - I do not think there was any consultation with the Department on that aspect. There would not have been, given the way the procedure is set up. The issue is less that the costs were completely out of kilter; it was the fact that there was an over-reliance on the amount of fundraising coming in. There was a procurement expert at the table, there always is. We always contract in to help us manage. This was a few years ago, in 2017 or 2018. That is one contract, the housing first contract, that was referred to. It was a number of years ago. I am going back in time. I was not the director at that stage but I am aware that there would have been a procurement expert there. The issue was less to do with the costing of the services and more to do with the over-reliance on fundraising, and that it was allowed.