The committee report should deal with that significant matter.

One of the biggest issues the witnesses have raised relates to age-friendly design. The committee needs to look at the cost implications and the best mechanism particularly in light of a new round of county development plans being proposed post the local elections next year. Do we need to start insisting that these need not just to become options for social and-or private development, but need to become standards? What would that cost? What would those standards be? We would need a lot of information on that. If the witnesses have information today or if they can recommend experts who can provide that to us in oral or written sessions in the future, that would be really interesting. The most compelling argument the witnesses make is that if this committee is to make a contribution to tackling the problem, age-friendly design is the priority. We can talk about adaptation grants and other stuff but that is the number one issue.

The second issue is a problem not just for older people. We need to see housing, particularly public or social housing, as more than bricks and mortar. Local authority officials here will know that the community element of the housing department is always the poor relation and is always the smaller bit of the picture. In other jurisdictions where they do public housing on a much bigger scale, the community element is an integral part of housing in terms of where people live and communities.

I would also be interested in any specific recommendations the witnesses believe we should consider beyond a more general recommendation that we need the HSE and local authorities to work together more. How do we put that into policy? What type of recommendations can we make? The witnesses talked about a paradigm shift, but in our world we need specific ideas and propositions to advise Government as to what needs to happen in terms of policy delivery.

What further information can the witnesses give us on the cost of implementing regulations for age-friendly design? What are the models of best practice? What countries do it better? What housing associations in Ireland are doing it well?

The witnesses were very generous in their comments on the two meagre references to older people in Rebuilding Ireland. I ask for more information on what is happening with those recommendations. My concern is that the scope of those recommendations is very limited. If the committee were to make additional policy recommendations to Rebuilding Ireland, what should they be?

I have a question for the NGOs. It is not about beating up on local government or central government. I ask them to give us their sense of how poorly local and central government are placing the needs of older people in the overall hierarchy of needs in our housing crisis. I am not trying to give people a hard time, but we have a crisis and given the things local authorities and central government have to respond to, it means other things get pushed down the line. What would the witnesses like us to argue to be pushed back up the line of priorities?

We can publish a report with 100 recommendations, which is great. However, 100 recommendations are much more difficult for us to push on Government. Therefore, let us have 50 or 100 recommendations if they are required, but what are the witnesses' top five? What would they like the committee to focus on not just what goes into a report, but what we can continually raise with Government in oral questions and committee meetings? We need to have those highlighted as much as possible. I believe the report of the Committee on Housing and Homelessness made 180 recommendations, but we chose 25 priority ones. It would be useful to try to do something similar with this report.