Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Sullivan for the presentation. I fully support the Bill. It is both eminently sensible and reasonable and I hope we will be able to progress it as speedily as possible given its logic. I will use the time I have to reinforce the reasons we need this legislation. I will talk a little about what I am experiencing on the ground in terms of homeless families and children.

Last Tuesday, we had a screening of a film here, "Through the Cracks", which was produced by Ingrid Casey and directed by Luke Daly and Nathan Fagan. It focused on the experience of two families. What was most powerful about the movie was we heard not only the voices of the mothers but also those of the children. It is one of the first times I have directly heard, albeit narrated by actors, children who are living in or who have lived in emergency accommodation, including family hubs, describe what it is like and talk about the impact on them. It was a very moving session.

It is important to acknowledge the reality of referrals of homeless families to Garda stations because there seems to be some level of public denial about this practice. The figures Deputy O'Sullivan quoted are factually correct and have been widely reported in the media. There seems to be a lack of clarity about who is responsible for this and what can be done to stop it.

My main concerns are the length of time families with children are spending in emergency accommodation. I deal with families who have been in emergency accommodation for more than two years. They started with arrangements lasting from one night to the next, before moving on to hotel placements and then family hubs. This is particularly the case for larger families because of the difficulties for local authorities in finding suitable accommodation under the housing assistance payment scheme or council allocations for families with four or more children. We are experiencing families being offered emergency accommodation for only part of their families. For example, a mother with three or four children will be told she can go to a hotel with two children because it will not accommodate her other two children who will be sent elsewhere, with all the negative impacts that has.

I do not understand why Tusla will not provide family supports outside of term time. Tusla will provide Leap cards and other such supports during term time. When the school term stops and a family is in emergency accommodation, for example, in Swords, Meath or Kildare and they are from the west or south of Dublin, those supports should be provided throughout the year because the family still has to travel to see relatives and access other supports.

I am glad Deputy O'Sullivan raised the issue of self-accommodation. I do not understand the reason for self-accommodation, other than to reduce the administrative burden on the local authority. The idea that a person experiencing the trauma of being homeless must ring a long list of hotels every day to secure emergency accommodation makes no sense. We had a particular difficulty in July and August and early September because of the holiday season. These are families who have to ring every day. There is no guarantee of a place. Some of these families are very vulnerable or have other issues in their lives. The idea that this is an appropriate mechanism for the allocation of emergency accommodation is wrong. It leads to relationship breakdown. I am sure other Deputies have experienced individual cases where a relationship breaks down and then there is the complication of who gets the emergency accommodation and access to the children. If this was just for a short period, it would be a reasonable proposition but given it could be for a year or two years, it has all sorts of implications for family relationships, particularly at early developmental stages for children.

I have some concerns about data. For example, we get figures on homeless children in Dublin but we do not get figures for the four local authorities in Dublin. For this reason, I do not know how many children from the South Dublin County Council area are currently in emergency accommodation because we do not get a breakdown of the overall figure. That causes all sorts of difficulties.

The value of the Bill is that it would make many of the practices I have highlighted less likely to occur. It would certainly give those of us who are advocating for families a stronger set of tools to try to ensure those types of practices are weaned out.

I am not criticising the Bill but there are limitations which are a result of not being able to introduce Opposition Bills that place a charge on the State. Other jurisdictions have statutory limits on the length of time adults and particularly families with children can spend in emergency accommodation. Scotland has a 24-week limit and it meets and exceeds it.

Officials from the Department are present and listening. We need the Department to seriously consider whether the Government could introduce legislation at some point providing for such legal limits in recognition of the serious developmental damage lengthy stays in emergency accommodation can do. Focus Ireland launched two significant studies last December which addressed the impact of emergency accommodation on families with children.

We need a much more proactive approach by local authorities in terms of prevention plans before families become homeless. The largest cause of family homelessness is the use of vacant possession notices to quit. In many cases we know six months before a family presents as homeless that it will be homeless. Despite what I hear from some Government Deputies on the floor of the Dáil, when a family presents with a notice to quit, it is told to go away and come back a month before it is given access to homeless housing assistance payments. It is then told to come back again on the day the notice to quit expires. That is clearly not an appropriate solution.

I fully support the Bill. I would like the committee to consider waiving further scrutiny after we hear what is said today in order that we can progress this as quickly as possible because it would be an important addition to the legislative protections for families with children.