Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all of the speakers for coming in. It is a very interesting debate and it is timely and important we have it here. I will preface my contribution by saying I started to read Richard Osman's The Man Who Died Twiceat the weekend. For those who do not know, the protagonists live in a retirement village. In that book, there is an awful lot of wine and an awful lot of pizza, so I look forward to the Departments' plans coming to fruition in approximately 20 years' time.

On a more serious note, the plight of the elderly is a hidden aspect of our housing crisis. Everybody in this room will have been out canvassing and come to the home of an old person who just wants to talk. I always say it is indicative of how lonely people are when they want to talk to a politician, but that is the reality. In many cases, we may be the only person they have seen that week. That situation was exacerbated by the Covid pandemic. Some local authorities have done well down through the years. Deputy Ó Broin mentioned the clusters of houses. It is my personal view this does not work. We probably have a view of young people in one place and then a cluster of houses together, but I do not believe that works. The Sue Ryder Foundation has a community for people with Alzheimer's disease in Bruff, where additional supports are provided. There is a real crisis looming but it also presents us with an opportunity within the area of housing. In many respects, the officials are probably ahead of the politicians in the work they have done. It may have been remiss of us not to have taken more detailed note of what they have been doing because there is a real opportunity there for us.

I have some questions. With regard to the provisions of the nursing home support scheme, most of these homes will not be up to the standard required to let them. If somebody has to go around and ask John, Michael and Marty to put up a few bob to get the house ready to rent out, that will be very divisive. Can we provide within the scheme for some kind of grant, which could then be recouped when the house is sold? With my hand on my heart, I can say that none of these homes will be up to the standard required to let them. That is one query for the witnesses.

The witnesses have spoken a lot about rightsizing. The tenant purchase scheme has been very successful for us. We made a change earlier in the year whereby people in receipt of the State pension can now opt to buy out their home.

There is a downside for people who successfully bought out the home under the tenant purchase scheme and would like to downsize, because there is no opportunity to since they have ended up in their own home and are automatically precluded from downsizing. We need to look at this. The witnesses mentioned something to Deputy McAuliffe earlier. Will they expand on that? Unfortunately, I missed that section.

It is great to see all the different agencies here today. We need something collective and radical for housing for the elderly in the future. Greater input is needed from the Department of Health. Some work has been done on that. In Longford, we recently appointed an old-age liaison officer in conjunction with Westmeath. It is one of the best initiatives that we have seen. Visits are made to people's houses and small, incremental improvement works are done, which is great to see, and we need more of it. We need something radical, such as what Senator Cummins mentioned. We need a mix of private approved housing bodies and local authorities coming together.

We also have to look at the challenge that care facilities for people with intellectual disabilities have. In many cases, the primary carers are over 70 years old. Challenges will arise related to Down's syndrome and dementia, which will feed into our housing policy over the next 20 to 30 years. It will be an additional challenge that will require a smart living solution. The Vienna model is very good. At a risk of sounding like Deputy O'Donoghue, there is an urban-rural divide. Cost rental will not work out in the sticks in Limerick and it will certainly not work in rural Longford. We need something. The Vienna model is great and it will certainly work in Dublin and large cities but not in the country. I hope the witnesses picked up on what I asked and I would appreciate if they could reply in the two minutes left.