Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is a follow-on to what I said earlier. The front bench of witnesses did not get an opportunity to come back in. It was about something Ms Rogers had said earlier. I get it: there is very obvious stuff the witnesses can do. The housing crisis impacts everyone. It is an absolute disaster. People who do not have money do not have the opportunity to always make good decisions. At times there is a poverty trap and there is even a social welfare trap where people who might attempt to get out of it are afraid of losing benefits or afraid of something changing in relation to being able to avail of HAP and so on. It is a very inflexible system that does not suit the world we live in. Ms Heeney got it right in the sense that we have always had pilots and schemes that work but we just never expand them properly. We never ensure we have the throughput of a workforce to ensure that happens. As I said, I get it: there will be a huge number of issues across all families and all socioeconomic groups. However, when you are dealing with areas of poverty and deprivation you are also dealing with intergenerational trauma. That is made worse by poverty and lack of choice. Then there is the major issue of drugs and addiction, which just compounds it. We talk about one good adult. We have all known families where previously there would have been the good granny. That no longer exists. We need a huge level of supports to deal with this. If we do not do it, we will be having this conversation forever. The improvements we can provide to society in general, to people's lives, are phenomenal. If we get this right - I remember somebody saying this even of addiction services - fewer supports might be needed into the future, but if we never tackle it we will be dealing with it and paying for it forever.