Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for missing the beginning of the meeting; we are all scheduled to deal with many things in these couple of days.

Obviously, the homelessness issue is different across the regions. I come from a rural constituency and see homelessness presenting in slightly different ways where we have families living with grandparents or many people in one house. We do not have hubs and for the most part do not see people on the streets. There are some families who use vouchers for bed and breakfast accommodation. The local authorities are quite reluctant to go beyond five days at a push. In my office I frequently meet people who have been told to apply for the housing assistance payment and are asking for help in finding a property to rent. However, they are not available. The last time I searched daft.iein the entire county of Mayo there were about 90 properties, even though it is a very large county. In some areas there were no properties available for rent, but there were a number of properties available on Airbnb. That is an issue not just in the cities but also beyond them. Are there specific solutions for rural communities in counties such as Mayo?

It is great when families come out of homelessness and are finally housed. On the follow-up with children who have spent a period in homelessness, there is stigma attached to it and the damage is done which they take with them. Is there any follow-up? Does it vary from county to county? I presume Tusla is responsible for that engagement.

My final suggestion came from a discussion about Leap cards. What to do with children during the summer is a problem for all parents, especially when it is raining and they do not have the routine of going to school every day. The parents who can afford to do so send their children to summer camps such as Cúl camps or Let's Go camps. This gives them routine as they are gone in the morning and back in the afternoons, a little like school. People who are homeless obviously do not have the resources to do so. Perhaps as a short-term measure for families living in hubs, bed and breakfast accommodation or hotels a grant or money could be made available to allow the children to participate in the summer camps we all attended when we were children.