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

We find that older people sometimes want to stay in their area and because moving sometimes means moving outside of their area, people just do not want that. It will be very hard for people to trust the process. I do not mean this disrespectfully because I have plenty of family working in Dublin City Council. This is not meant to be disrespectful of Dublin City Council, but it is very hard to trust Dublin City Council after all of this time if it promises people the sunny uplands of a new place. It is very hard to relinquish what you have, even if you know in your heart you are one person in a three-bed, you think that if you give it up it is a leap into the unknown that you are not willing to take in the middle of a housing crisis. I completely understand that. A project that brings everyone along is one where people can take that leap of faith because they have that trust, but we are a bit away from that.

With the agreement of the committee, it would be our intention to bring Dublin City Council in and to put to it the issues the witnesses have raised with us. To be fair as well, the council also has a perspective, and we should hear from it. If the committee agrees, that is what we will do.

The number of boarded up homes is likely to rise in the intervening time. I do not want to talk about vacancy and dereliction within Deputy Gould's hearing because it is something he talks about a lot and I will probably get something wrong. It should be a crime to have an empty house in the middle of a housing crisis. Perhaps we will get a chance to discuss that if the committee agrees to invite Dublin City Council in.

I thank Mr. Maloney. I also thank the people in the Gallery because we can see how much it means. Senator Andrews is waiting patiently to come back in.