Mr. Bill Griffin:

Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan commented on allocations. I mentioned the project we had in Galway, where it is written into the service level agreement that if, after a period of three months, no nomination comes from someone who is classed as homeless, the allocation goes to someone off the general housing list. That can be built in. Ultimately, the local authorities have the say on who gets those places, as opposed to State service providers such as ourselves. There is no need for it to be exclusive. To again use a local example, last year Galway City Council spent €222,000 on putting people in hotels whereas it started the year by setting aside a budget of €9,000 for this. By definition, those people are the council's priority. That is just a local example of how bad it has become.

We are obviously here to represent a certain group of people on the housing list.

Because of what is happening, people who are classed as homeless are now becoming the councils' priorities because they are spending large amounts of money. We talk about development each year. There is also word that the Department may have to hold back on 25% of the funding to cope with the emergency, so some of the more long-term solutions we have talked about here today will probably not get dealt with again or will be at the back of the queue.