Colette Kelleher (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister and his officials. I note that, in his address, the Minister challenges people who say that nothing is being done. People know that work is being done. The challenge relates to whether enough is being done. Are the right actions being taken and the right policy implemented? I worked for Cork Simon Community for eight years. I was recently in touch with the organisation and it is working flat out. It is one of the NGOs working with the Minister and it is working extremely hard. It only receives 50% of its funding from the State. It works night and day, as do local authorities around the country. The critiques are concerned with whether the Government's response to the scale of the crisis is inadequate. People wonder whether the right actions are being taken and being prioritised correctly.

My questions relate to pillar 1 and tackling homelessness. I am particularly concerned with one group included in those figures - children. I do not believe the Minister specifically mentioned children living in emergency accommodation. An estimated 3,800 children, and possibly more, are living in emergency accommodation. Last month, there were an unprecedented two Oireachtas joint committee reports presented on the same day. I have copies of them. One was compiled by this committee and the other by the Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs. This committee's report made 14 recommendations and the other report made 20.

Is the Minister planning to act on all, or any, of the recommendations in these two reports within the terms of reference of Rebuilding Ireland or other recommendations or measures available to him? That is not clear from his statement. The recommendations were strong and clear, and I would like to hear from him his plans in this regard.

Does he accept the detrimental effects and the adverse childhood experiences associated with living in homelessness? A total of 70% of people whom Cork Simon Community has supported have experienced these adverse early childhood experiences. The group we are neglecting today is the group that will be homeless tomorrow. This is not just a blight on people's lives but also, ultimately, a cost to the State in the responses we must make. Does the Minister accept that even more children in Ireland are living in cold and unhealthy environments? Does he also accept the findings of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, SVP, report published earlier this week that a staggering 140,000 children are growing up in the cold and that 12.3% of children are living in fuel poverty, prone to ill-health and illnesses that go with living in such conditions? This report revealed that one in five one-parent families live in substandard accommodation and 11% are in arrears with utility bills. The impact of homelessness and inadequate housing on children's health was spelled out by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, RCPI, in another important report published in November. The SVP's Growing Up in the Cold and the RCPI's report are in line with a smaller but important study, Born and Raised into Homelessness, Overcrowding and Substandard Housing, undertaken by Young Knocknaheeny, a highly successful project based on Cork's north side and promoting infant mental health but whose work is undermined at every hand's turn by the fact that families are living in substandard, unsafe, unsanitary and unhealthy living conditions.

Landlords are receiving housing assistance payment, HAP, money from the State for quite frankly slum conditions. One of the reports cites the case of a family with a child with special needs living in a HAP apartment in which all three family members slept on sofas in the living area due to a large leak from the main bedroom window. We, as a State, are giving this landlord money. The second bedroom was damp and the storage heater did not work. They were heating the apartment with a tumble dryer. The child living there was under three years of age, had additional needs and was being supported by a physiotherapist and a speech and language therapist. They could not help that much, however, because of the state of the living conditions.

Returning to the two Oireachtas joint committee reports on child homelessness, what is the Minister going to do about the recommendations? Is he heeding what fellow Oireachtas Members have recommended, what doctors have recommended and what front-line workers are telling him? Will he at the very least end the practice of one-night-only emergency accommodation, which is so very harmful to children?

I ask him to think about this. What kind of effect does he think a night-to-night existence would have had on him when he was a boy? I ask him to think about his anxiety levels and about getting to school, doing homework, playing and making friends while going from night to night and from place to place. How would he eat properly? How would he begin to have a decent life? As this committee recommended, will he cease the provision of one-night-only accommodation?

Under pillar 1, Rebuilding Ireland commits to appointing dedicated child support workers for children experiencing homelessness. We know from organisations working on the ground that child support workers are hugely important to the 4,000 homeless children. The Ombudsman for Children made the same finding, and the RCPI report stated the same. It also found that 40% of children in homelessness accommodation have clinically significant developmental, emotional and behavioural problems. I have also heard anecdotally - I want to get to the bottom of this - that children living in emergency accommodation are not getting their vaccines because of certain issues. I do not have the full facts on that but I will come back to it. We are letting children down.

In summary, my questions relate to ending the practice at least of one-night-only accommodation; getting the child support workers to children; and how the Minister will respond to the reports from this committee, the Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs, the RCPI the SVDP and others.