Maire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for attending the committee today. There is a delay in the registration process for social workers with their approved professional body. Will the Minister comment on that? Has she met with them to get the finger out and go through the registration process a little faster?

Children are being born into homelessness. The latest figures show there are 2,300 children in emergency accommodation. That is one in every three people in emergency accommodation. There is also the hidden homeless such as those couch-surfing or borrowing space in sheds. From meetings in constituencies over the past several years and having worked as a mental health nurse, I have watched seven and nine-year old children in emergency accommodation regress in their development and become more infantile. Some have become doubly incontinent and started sucking their thumbs, for example. Their development is stunted and this a time bomb for their mental health in the making. Is there any planned research to see how these children’s mental capacity, as well as their mental and emotional well-being, is affected?