Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)

I thank the witnesses for the work they do. It goes without saying, but sometimes we do not say it.

We just had the Department in, when I asked a question in relation to capturing actual levels of poverty and deprivation. Will the witnesses comment on the exclusion of people who are not in a household? There are 5,000 children or more not in a household. Those are the ones in emergency accommodation, and that obviously does not include the number who might be in other forms of temporary or emergency accommodation. Is the Department missing a trick by leaving out that group? It skews the figures and makes a significant contribution if we include those who are not in a bricks and mortar household. Will the witnesses comment on the impact and about who is getting left behind by the Department's statistics? It strikes me that the Department has decided on an acceptable level of child poverty and it is going to work towards that, but I feel that it is leaving out a significant group. Is that the view of the witnesses?