Mr. Tony Cunningham:

I will come in if that is all right. There was a question about the 30% and whether it is being delivered. The one fact we have from experience is the shortage of delivery. There are some houses delivered. Going back to need, however, we actually do not know what the need is. Again, that is a result of the blind eye to disability over the decades. We know from the 2020 summary of housing assessment need, which is collated by all the local authorities, that 8% of the need is for people with disabilities, but how many of them require wheelchair-liveable housing is not known. The figures do not exist. They are divided into physical, sensory, intellectual, mental health and so on in terms of disability, but there could be people under the physical disability section who do not use wheelchairs and many people in the intellectual disability section who use wheelchairs and require liveable housing in that sense. That is a big problem.

Another challenge for us all is the people who are not planning ahead. We see from the analysis from the Housing Agency that the length of time people are on waiting lists has increased for people with disabilities. You could be five years, ten years or more waiting for a house, so there is a long time waiting. We in the Irish Wheelchair Association have run a campaign this year called Think Ahead, Think Housing because of the under-representation of people with disabilities on the approved housing list and because people do not tend to plan ahead sufficiently in the knowledge that they could be waiting five years or ten years. Many people wait until they need a house. To give the committee one example, we have met with the HSE and are working with a local authority on a housing development very successfully and very positively. We will have a percentage of wheelchair-accessible houses within that development, although maybe only about six, to put it in context. We linked in with the HSE in that case to plan for the personal supports that are required. This was recently - about one or two months ago, maybe. Immediately, the HSE identified 22 people who required wheelchair-liveable housing that it was providing in its services. We asked whether they were approved for social housing and whether they had applied. Nobody knew. They went and checked. Twenty-one of the 22 people had not applied for social housing and they needed it. If you mirror that around the country, that 8% will jump substantially and-----