On Monday of this week, Inner City Helping Homeless, ICHH, published its Empowerment to Rights report. Some 98% of homeless people have never engaged in an official exit plan for homelessness; 87% said that the situation often leads to feelings of anxiety and depression; 40% of respondents experienced sexual assault while homeless; 84% of respondents said they were not comfortable making a complaint within the homeless services; and 65% said that they have been finding it difficult to manage their hygiene during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The press release from ICHH stated that the most frequent words used in the survey to describe the homeless experience included "shame", "dirty", "alone", "unseen", "inhuman", "lost", "depressed", "unwanted" and "scared". Does the Tánaiste think that is acceptable that that would be the outcome of the survey? What is the Government going to do about it?

I am afraid I am not familiar with the survey, so I probably should not comment on it. I will, however, take a look at it. The Government is investing more in homeless services than has ever been the case previously. While there are still far too many people homeless in our country, it is down considerably on where we were a year or two ago. We must ensure we keep that trajectory going in the right direction. That involves, in particular, investment in the Housing First programme, of which I am a big fan and which I think has been very successful. We need more tenancies under that programme.

As the Deputy knows, however, homelessness is a complex problem. It is not just about housing, although it is very much about housing; it also involves mental health, addiction services and many different things that we have to get right. The level of investment now going into all those areas is unprecedented, however, and we are seeing a result in the form of lower levels of homelessness than we experienced a few years ago. It is absolutely the case though that it is not enough and more needs to be done.