Mr. Cathal Morgan:

With regard to the census, it makes eminent sense to use that data to attract as much property in that sector to social use as possible. I would caution against using the previous census, as opposed to Sunday's census, because the data may be just way too out of date, particularly in the Dublin region. It is my understanding that the CSO has agreed to issue a priority report on the basis of Sunday's census to make available data that will help housing authorities and AHBs to go after the property that is available.

The other note of caution we sound relates to our experience of constant campaigning around leasing arrangements and the HAP. Local authorities are at this on a day-to-day basis. There have been numerous campaigns to attract properties from the private rental sector. We have to face the fact that Dublin has substantial constraints when it comes to making properties available. That is a fact of life and that will be the case for some time. We have made huge efforts regarding how we, as a sector, co-ordinate access to the private rental sector. For example, in Dublin, we have set up a unique Dublin Place Finder Service. Rather than having numerous housing bodies and homeless services going after the same types of property and contacting landlords, we have one unit that makes contact with all property owners. Six full-time staff try to attract landlords into the HAP on a day-to-day basis. There has been some success. In Dublin, specifically under the homelessness remit, we have secured more than 180 HAP properties since late last year. That, therefore, has taken a few hundred people out of the homeless system. We will take the recent census data and we will do our best to go after properties in so far as they are available to us.

With regard to the reasons households become homeless, everyone knows and accepts there is not only one reason. It is a complex dynamic. Households may have complex social and health care needs ranging from addiction to mental health, and sometimes both combined, and may, for different reasons, be unable to manage their existing tenancies, which they then fall out of, or there may be a relationship breakdown, which is a significant factor. That dynamic has absolutely shifted in the past few years. The vast majority of families presenting are coming to us because their primary need is housing. It is straightforward. Concerns have been raised about managing day-to-day life, particularly in respect of income adequacy and poverty, which has become a huge factor for families, but the greatest cause of concern as a result of that is the level of insecurity within the private rental sector.

We are satisfied that there has been substantial change from the point of view of trying to put rent certainty - in so far as it is rent certainty - in place to help existing tenants. We know that, given the squeeze on the private rental sector, families are losing their private rental tenancies and sometimes going home or going to friends, not wanting to come to us but eventually ending up on our doorstep looking for emergency responses.

We are an advocate for two other things which we think would help, if we are looking at solutions. The mortgage-to-rent scheme is something we would like to see kept in place and expanded and improved upon. We have also been on the record as calling for rent receiverships. This is something we are asking financial institutions in particular to come on board with. The principle here has to be that we cannot have a situation in which households are being made homeless. If that is our working principle, to what degree can we change the current situation when a mortgage gets into difficulty? If a landlord is renting a property out and he or she gets into difficulty, can we have rent receiverships whereby the family stays in place or goes into a mortgage-to-rent scheme, so that, at least, breathing space can be provided to that household to look at the alternatives over a period of time? It does not make sense to us because what happens then is that a family becomes homeless and unfortunately ends up in a commercial hotel setting, which means that, ultimately, we pay more. We have always said this is absolutely unsustainable. It makes sense for the State to be able to stand back and ask what can be done to alleviate this.

It is important also to say that we have not just been standing idly by. We have had excellent co-operation with the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and the Department of Social Protection. I can only speak for the Dublin region to this extent, but we established a tenancy protection service in the Dublin region which will now be spread out to the surrounding commuter belt. It is an early intervention whereby Threshold intervenes with the family. If the family is in difficulty paying its rent and is in receipt of rent supplement, there is a direct intervention made with the Department of Social Protection. That initiative alone is not solving every problem. We are facing a huge calamity, but since that service was set up in 2014, 1,905 tenancies have been protected as a result of that specific scheme. Obviously it cannot protect every tenancy from falling down, because of the factors I have just mentioned such as receiverships.