Ms Saoirse Brady:

We all know that there is no constitutional right to housing, but the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Ireland has ratified, affords children the right to an adequate standard of living, including the provision of quality housing for those children. While the convention does not apply directly in Irish law, the courts can exercise discretion in how much weight they give international law in their decisions.

In 2016, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child examined Ireland. It expressed concern "at reports of families affected by homelessness facing significant delays in accessing social housing and frequently living in inappropriate, temporary or emergency accommodation on a long-term basis". The UN committee called on the State "to undertake measures to increase the availability of social housing and emergency housing support".

I think we can all agree that the face of homelessness in Ireland has changed. When the existing legislation was put in place, it was to support single adult males. Nowadays, lone parent families with children make up the biggest cohort in the homeless population. It is not right that when local authorities decide where families with children will be accommodated, they do not have to take the children's best interests into account. This is why, as part of our No Child 2020 campaign, which is focused on child poverty and looks to the aims of the Democratic Programme of 1919, we are calling on the Government to put in place progressive legislate that would recognise the best interests of children and would mean that decision-makers, when deciding where those children should be placed, should take their best interests into account and ensure that their needs are met. This would mean that they would have to consider such matters, as Ms Quinn stated, as to whether or not children would have to get up at 5.30 a.m. to make a two and a half hour journey to school, whether babies and toddlers would have the room to learn to crawl and learn to walk and whether teenagers would have enough privacy from their parents and siblings.

Furthermore, the amended legislation should clearly time-limit the use of emergency accommodation for families with children. Some families are locked into homelessness for years, as Mr. Allen said. He gave the figure of 167, or 13%, of families who are living in homeless accommodation for more than two years. Both the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and the Ombudsman for Children, from whom the committee will hear this morning, have called for time limits on how long a family should spend in temporary accommodation. This is to avoid the risk of institutionalisation and the normalisation of homelessness.

In July 2017, the Government began to roll-out family hubs after it did not meet its own target to use emergency accommodation only in limited circumstances and at the beginning of 2019, there were 26 hubs nationwide with capacity to accommodate 600 families. When we were producing the Report Card last year and asked the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, we found that up to the third quarter in 2018 the Department had put €45 million into those family hubs. While the hubs are more suitable, they do not represent a long-term or child-appropriate solution. Children themselves, as I am sure the committee will hear from Dr. Muldoon shortly, do not see family hubs as a solution.

What is the long-term solution? If we want to realise the right of children to a home, we need to provide quality public housing. We would hope to see a move away from a reliance on the private rented sector and instead provide families with suitable, adequate and affordable accommodation where they feel security and where children feel that they have a place that they can truly call home.