Ms Niamh Lambe:

There are variations. The Focus Ireland family homeless action team works in 15 private emergency accommodations and nine hubs. To echo what Mr. Allen said, hubs are obviously not the ideal. However, while families are in a hub we find that things work well if the staff has social care training and if child support workers are in place. As I mentioned earlier, our team deals with more than 1,000 children. We are the largest team working with homeless families in Dublin. Only 9% of the child support workers on our team are working with children. If every child had a child support worker, whether he or she was in a hub or in private emergency accommodation, that would make a huge improvement to overall family outcomes. It would help both the parent and the child to move on more successfully and to be less traumatised by homelessness. In the hubs where there is social care training one can see the difference. Behaviour is managed better and supports are in place.

Some of the hubs also have more facilities and spaces for key working. Children should not meet a key worker alongside their parents while their parents are in trauma and are disclosing what has happened to them with regard to homelessness. More facilities should be in place so that children have the one-to-one support they require based on their developmental needs and so that parents also have their own support. Some accommodation has shared kitchen facilities. The facilities are better than those in private emergency accommodation but there is still a long way to go. We have to acknowledge that children are severely displaced as well. We have children travelling to school from Ballymun and elsewhere on the north side to the south side and all over Dublin. Self-accommodating families are also a major issue for us because they move from place to place each night. There is huge displacement for children. I firmly believe that child support workers should be in place for all children and parents. That would give them an advantage, in contrast to being at a further disadvantage while in homelessness.