Ms Mary Leahy:

I meet families postnatally. We receive notification of a birth; we know within 24 hours that a birth has occurred and that the family are homeless. Invariably social services are involved in the internatal stage, but we do not see any evidence of social work community support postnatally. The mother will have some connection with the maternity hospital whereby she can access a social worker for a period of time, but it is very brief. We do not really have social workers in the community. There is also a shortage of public health nurses.

On how it affects families, initially the mother and the family endure understandable psychological distress at the fact that they are homeless. There is a sense of shame and failure and all that comes with it. Very often, they are placed in a hotel immediately after birth and would not necessarily be in the same hotel they were in antenatally. They are moving into a completely new environment immediately after having a baby, which brings its own risks. It is a high-risk period for any mother after delivering a baby. Very often, the hotel is located in a geographical area not known to the family. In addition, we are noticing a massive nutritional and dietetic effect because in the contract with the hotel the accommodation paid for by the HSE is possibly on a bed and breakfast only basis. We notice that the family are given a fry every morning, but there is no provision for an evening meal or dinner. We also notice that mothers are relying on commercial foods for infants and baby rice in jars with no provision of facilities to heat them. We are getting involved in negotiations with hotel staff to see whether they can swap a breakfast for an evening meal which is more nutritious. A breakfast could be cooked in a room. Porridge is easy to make and more nutritious than a full fry every morning seven days a week. We are involved at this level of negotiations to try to do a deal with hotels in order that families can eat better because there are massive implications in terms of obesity, poor child nutrition and socialisation associated with diet and eating.

Another issue I have seen is that gross motor development is delayed in infants because mothers, understandably, do not want to put them down on the carpet in the hotel room because they do not know how long it has been in place and who has been on it before them. We are encouraging them to get more towels to leave them on the floor to let the baby down on the ground to move and achieve the milestones expected at the various times we assess babies such as at two weeks and three months. We notice that speech and language and gross motor development are delayed. We also notice psychological distress in the mother which invariably impacts on the rest of the family. We also notice nutritional, dietetic and psychosocial effects. It impacts on the networking supports of which the families could invariably avail if they were living in the community. Very often, they are moved to another hotel or temporary accommodation after a period of time such that they are not able to develop the supports available. This is becoming very common. Two years ago it was rare, but now I see it regularly and I am covering an affluent area. It has nothing to do with the socioeconomic group being covered but with where the hotels are located.