I am sure the Tánaiste will join me by offering his sympathies and the sympathies of the Government on the passing of Sr. Colette Hickey, who passed away at the age of 108. She was the founder of Edel House Cork and the first winner of the 1993 Cork Person of the Year Award for the tremendous work she did for our city.

This week, we have reports in the press of 265 people aged 65 or older living in emergency accommodation. A total of 146 of them live in Dublin alone. These are men and women who should be well settled into their retirements, not sleeping in hostels and hubs. It is not long ago that I brought up in this House a case in Mallow in my constituency, where we have a lady approaching 80 years of age who has been placed in homeless accommodation far from her network, neighbours and everybody who she associated with through her lifetime. Unfortunately, that is not an isolated case. This is just one of the human faces of the figures that I have given this House.

It is not the first warning that this Government has received. In January, the Simon Communities of Ireland, working with the Simon Community Galway, published a report a report on homelessness in later life. It found that old age homelessness had doubled in the past five years. It found that the assumption of older people owning their own homes or being in secure tenancies was no longer a reflection of the reality of the State. More often, it struck me that many of these people are in private rented accommodation with rapidly rising rents, watching their own security that they spent a lifetime building disappear in front of their eyes. Uachtarán Connolly attended the launch of that report in Galway. She said it shines a spotlight on the growing number of older people experiencing homelessness, and particular attention should be given to the recommendations. When the President of Ireland says that this needs to be looked at, surely the Government and this House should pay attention to that.

The report sets out six clear costings in its policy recommendations, namely, stronger national leadership, better legal protections, increasing resources for homeless services, and a targeted strategy for expanding age-friendly housing. In fairness to it, that is not a radical ask. They are basic and achievable steps by any Government, I would have assumed. The report's authors said that Ireland has a window of opportunity to act before it becomes entrenched. Five months have passed since its launch and the numbers have not improved, as I laid out. The lady in Mallow is not the only one in homeless services, living at a homeless hub at the moment.

This is not being treated as a priority by the Government. We seem to have a problem in this State where we look at elderly people and think it is someone else's problem. How many of the six recommendations in that report has the Government adopted? Will it publish a timeline? Is the Minister for housing delivering on them? Has the report been welcomed by the Government publicly but shelved privately?

I join Deputy O'Flynn in extending my sympathy to the friends, family and fellow sisters of Sr. Colette Hickey. What an incredible age and, indeed, an incredible life of service and impact on people, particularly in Cork. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam dílis. I thank the Deputy for extending his sympathy to her in the House.

I thank Deputy O'Flynn for raising this issue. I do not dispute that it is serious. One reason we decided that for the very first time the Minister of State with responsibility for older people should be based in both the Department of Health and the Department of housing is the recognition that we cannot just have conversations about older people from a policy perspective in the Department of Health. We also need to have conversations about health and well-being in the context of housing. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, is committed to this agenda and working extraordinarily hard on this. Compared with the previous one, the last census showed the scale of the challenge here. The Deputy is right to highlight that the number of people over the age of 65 renting had increased by a very significant amount.

There is a real policy issue here, which I do not doubt. That is why this year we will be producing a specific housing plan for older people. I will give the Deputy a flavour of some of the issues that we believe need to be addressed. Rightsizing is an important issue and the Department of Finance, with the Central Bank, has put in place a change to the bridging finance rules regarding access to mortgages, which is important for older people who need to rightsize for their own quality of life and health, and want to live in their own community. Not being prohibited by rigid mortgage rules is a positive development. It is why some of the tenancy protections are important, being able to provide six-year tenancies for people rather the uncertainty we have had in our country before. That is why we also need to work specifically with older people on social housing targets for every local authority, and in the new plan, we will be. I do not say this to be critical of Cork. In fact, it is a positive. A city like Cork could really help to lead the way here by becoming a local authority that decides to set targets. There is nothing to stop any local authority from doing this today but we will be mandating it as part of our plan for every local authority to set targets for the number of older people's homes they will deliver each year. Any of us who have been involved in public life have seen what used to happen in the past, where small clusters or estates of homes used to be developed for older people and-or people with a disability. I am not being critical of anyone but that stopped for a while and we need to really revamp and rebuild that.

We need better data collection processes regarding older people. We need our local authorities to enhance delivery through improved site identification, working closer with the approved housing bodies too. We need to and will recognise in the plan the increasing number of older people renting in the private rented sector and examine those affordability challenges for older people approaching retirement in the sector and how we, as a Government, need to help to address those challenges. We will be back as soon as possible this year, with our housing plan for older people. We will encompass these issues in that.

I am looking forward to meeting Valerie O'Sullivan, our city chief executive, and informing her that the Government will make moneys available for housing plans for older people. There is another elephant in the room which I want to make the Government aware of, that is, people who lost their houses back in the 2008 to 2009 period. They are now in rented accommodation and back on their feet. Some of them have restarted businesses. Some of them are back working but they are renting. A number of these people are rapidly approaching 65 now. I predict that there will be a tremendous increase in people approaching local authorities throughout the country, saying they can no longer afford the €2,300 rent and need to be on a local authority housing list. I predict that will be a huge problem facing this country. I do not think we are accounting for it, thinking about it, or planning for it. Losing your home in your 70s is not just a housing problem. It is a health, mobility and routine problem, and people certainly lose their dignity when they lose their home at that age.

I largely agree with the Deputy's analysis. We are still seeing the scars of that financial crash, where people who lost their home at a certain age are now ageing. We have to be prepared. That is one of reasons we are doing a specific body of work led by the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, which will come to Government shortly. Alongside the reasons the Deputy pointed out, we are also seeing a significant increase in life expectancy, which is largely a good thing for society, but also a change in our demographics. We are expecting that the population aged over 85 will increase by over 140% in Ireland by 2040. There is very significant demographic churn. We are still one of the youngest populations in Europe but we are ageing fast. We are very committed to acting on this. We allocate a lot of money to local authorities. I would say respectfully that all of them need to start showing creativity with regard to the type of housing they are delivering, including homes for people with disabilities and homes for older people. Social housing is used as a kind of umbrella term. We need to start looking at the types of social housing that are required and that mixed tenure. I would be happy to meet Cork City Council about that at any time.