Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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I welcome the witnesses. I thank Ms Hurley, Mr. O'Mahony, Ms Spillane and Mr. Tynan for their contributions. We had engagement about this at a previous meeting and we have loads of information. I do not think anyone in this room needs to be convinced about the need to have support housing. I am glad to say that the witnesses have overlapping coverage of a recurring theme, and it is positive that we have looked at design, health and planning issues. It is complex. The other big issue is isolation. I am familiar with gated developments since I live in Dún Laoghaire. I will talk about them in the private sector. People tell me that they have had to rent in these little schemes in townhouses. They are locked and gated. Many people leave these gated communities every day to work. There are opportunities for integration and such. When one looks at the demographics, ageing and elderly people, we have to talk about that key word, community. In some parts of the country, we have wonderful libraries where old people can go and sit down. They would have been thrown out a few years ago. The reality is that there are elderly people who live on their own in this city, the county and all over the country who have very little income. They are lonely and isolated. They literally walk the streets or go to cafés, train stations, public libraries or, in some cases, the waiting rooms of hospitals to interact. Sad as it is, that is the reality.

I will address a few issues, starting with social housing targets in this context. I am disappointed in the social housing targets but that is another debate for another day. It might have occured to the policymakers that they might have set down, as part of the social housing targets, a breakdown of those targets. What percentage of those would be specifically for downsizing? We talk about downsizing and I want to ask Ms Hurley if she might share with us. There has been much talk about a downsizing pilot scheme in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and we might hear a little about that and its success. I am conscious of a place in St. Laurence's Park in Stillorgan which I have shared with people here for months. Two elderly people live in isolation in local authority units because they do not want to leave. They want to stay there. I do not hear much support from the Department for those two people who wish to stay. I want to use this opportunity to make an appeal that those two vulnerable old ladies are allowed to remain in their homes in St. Laurence's Park in Stillorgan. If we are to be meaningful about our dialogue, discussion and policy formulation, we have to put it into reality. How can we stand over a public housing policy that has spent years emptying out 16 maisonettes in Stillorgan which are next to doctors, a leisure centre, a library, churches and various supports? If we are talking seriously about engagement, this is the type of site that we should keep and maintain, and support elderly people to live in.

The reality is it has been de-tenanted for years and slowly people are being picked off. Now two vulnerable ladies are living in two houses that are being described as holding up the potential for development. I do not want to be too specific but I want that site to be identified for downsizing and support housing for vulnerable people and elderly people because of the importance of community. I ask representatives of the Department for breakdowns in any further social housing targets to identify the percentage of one-bedroom and two-bedroom properties.

Let us deal with the facts we were told about last week. We have a rapidly ageing population. We have a large number of people over 55 on all our social housing lists who are unable to get accommodation. Many of them are single, elderly and vulnerable with very low incomes. What are we doing about that? How are they worked into our social housing priorities? There is an increasing elderly population particularly on our social housing lists. Right across the spectrum it is a demographic with chronic health issues and disabilities. Are we setting aside some of this accommodation for people with disabilities? We are not. If we are, we are certainly not delivering. We know there are a number of occupiers in the private sector who have no mortgages and who are willing and want to downsize in line with everything the witnesses have advocated and yet we know there are no small units for them to downsize to in their communities. We know that older people, and for that matter younger people and all of us in this room, thrive best when we have community supports and loved ones, family and friends around us. It is something we all want by our very natures.

I will ask some questions. I will address the first one to Ms Hurley, not because she is from the Department but because it concerns the central tenet of the policy contained in Rebuilding Ireland. Can she provide an update on the two - she should note the emphasis on the word "two" - items contained in Rebuilding Ireland on providing housing for older people? I want her to deal with that.

Reference was made to the cross-departmental approach and inter-agency co-operation. I have touched on that. It is excellent. The Department is currently finalising a joint policy statement on housing for older people which it is envisaged will be published this summer. Will Ms Hurley keep the committee in the loop as that progresses? I look forward to being at the launch, not reading about it but being there and hearing about it. There will be a conference hosted jointly by the Minister of State with responsibility for housing and urban renewal, Deputy Damien English, and the Minister of State with responsibility for older people, Deputy Jim Daly. I ask Ms Hurley to keep the committee informed on the progress on that work. She might indicate a timeframe for when she thinks she will have that work complete. Everyone knows what the challenges and issues are. It now must become policy. The emphasis is on these social housing targets and breaking them down specifically with a focus on demographics and ageing and the challenges and priorities that need to come from that.