Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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I thank the members of the commission for their presentation. For those who do not know, I am a new Senator but I have been involved in homelessness and housing for the last 20 years. When the commission was set up in December 2021, I was rather excited. I always keep a tab on the homeless figures in my office. At that stage, the figure was 8,914, with 2,400 of those being children. Now that we have the report, the homeless figures have doubled to 15,580, including 4,700 children.

The commission's report's overview states: "Housing must be a unique national priority, supporting social cohesion and economic development." The commission started in December 2021 and put in two and a half years of good work. We have now gone a year beyond that. I heard the witness who is appearing remotely say that hundreds of meetings took place and all the rest. Why have none of the 83 findings been implemented? Was there nothing that could be implemented which would make a difference to the homeless figures we are dealing with every day?

We seem to have a wonderful collection of experts. They all have a fantastic CV but it seems, culturally, we are not working together? Whether it is governmental Departments or whatever, is there a reason for that? Do they think, in Ireland, we cannot seem to solve the housing and it is something culturally?

Third, if they were to identify one recommendation from the findings that we could implement in 2025 which could make the difference, what would that recommendation be and what is stopping us?