Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The main issue I want to deal with is homelessness. The representative from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul spoke about beginning the delivery of free access for GP care. Does the society propose to commence the delivery process with children given that they are often the people about whom families are most worried? It is frightening to think people are afraid to visit a GP because of the costs involved.

Reference was made to gender proofing the budget. That certainly did not happen in the last budget.

Women and families were targeted. Child benefit was cut, maternity benefits were taxed and last year there were changes to the one-parent family payment situation, which I found most difficult. It happened in July this year that, depending on the age of the youngest child, some people were switched from one-parent family payment to jobseeker's allowance. The income disregard for a person on jobseeker's allowance is approximately €60 compared with approximately €110 for the one-parent family payment, so some people lost €50 and, as a result, they gave up their jobs. That forced lone parents, who are mainly women, to give up their jobs.

The most striking statement I have heard here so far today is that, shockingly, most homelessness is avoidable. We should chew on that because it is becoming more and more an issue. Much of it is not based only on financial issues. A document from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul discusses child and adolescent mental health services. Some of these are difficulties where a teenager or person in their early 20s has a child, cannot get on at home and moves out. I find the local authorities are sometimes unsympathetic to this issue. One of the reasons there are more voluntary organisations such as the ones represented here is that local authorities did not have the interest in looking after families. They just built houses and collected rent. Many local authorities are telling people in their 20s, 30s and even 40s and 50s that there is room available in their parents' houses - who might be in their 70s - and they are not allowed into the housing list. I am concerned not just about those on the housing list, but about the people I cannot get onto the housing list in Laois. They are being told there is accommodation available but for all the variety of what the witnesses called the shocking reasons families have difficulties, they cannot live in that house. How would the witnesses see that being addressed?

The shocking situation of youth homelessness is not a financial but a societal problem. The anti-social issue comes in. Teenagers and people in their 20s can be obstreperous, cause problems and be guilty of anti-social behaviour. The policy of local authorities is to evict people in those situations, and local authorities are quite happy to have those people with anti-social behaviour problems in private rented accommodation and not under their control in their houses. They will not allocate a house to a family where they know there is a difficulty but will leave it to the private sector. Local authorities have outsourced many of their problems and voluntary organisations are picking up some of them. Some of them, shockingly, are avoidable, and that is the theme I would like most of the responses to cover.