Dr. Tom Boland:

In terms of the process that this committee is starting, I presume this is the first of a long series of planned meetings, with a view to gathering together all of the expertise on this. It is worth mentioning that the main source of information in Ireland is the CSO. In terms of high-level reflection, the ESRI publishes a great number of good papers in this area and the work of Mr. Barra Roantree, in particular, is very good in that regard. Gathering all of those perspectives together and subjecting them to interrogation or analysis is very important. It is useful to draw on all the resources, including ours, those of the ESRI and other academics. It is worth mentioning the work of Dr. Michael McGann, who has moved from Maynooth University back to Australia. The committee should consider having him over because he has doing some really interesting work on the fact that is not the character of the people in the systems but the character of the systems as set by government that is relevant. If targets are put into a welfare system, then people chase the targets rather than adhering to the spirit of the system. The spirit of the system is the support, the compassion, the care. Drawing together all of that expertise would be important. I am sure everybody thinks their issue deserves more attention and while housing is currently commanding a huge amount of attention, and rightly so, as is health, social welfare affects so many people, whether they are currently receiving a payment or not. Everyone will be receiving such a payment eventually. All of the students that myself and Dr. Fitzpatrick lecture to will eventually be in that situation so making this into a national conversation rather than a technical fix is so important.