Máiría Cahill (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State's comprehensive answer. I note with some concern that the direction made by the Minister only extends to 31 January 2016. I will obviously be calling on that to be extended for much longer. We are talking about the need to remove barriers for those who urgently need to leave their homes. We are not talking about emergency accommodation but about long-term, safe and secure accommodation. With that in mind and while all of this is welcome, I believe that a national direction should be given in order to have a systematic, joined-up approach. In addition, some sort of regulated, uniform thinking is required among those allocating housing to assist based solely on need. This is one category of victims which should absolutely be based on high priority housing need. Would it be possible, therefore, to get a commitment that there will be some degree of creative thinking nationally, instead of dealing with such problems locally? In the case I am dealing with, it is clearly not working.