Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

How you sanction that is a difficulty when you also have to deal with a patron body, when there are disparities. My child's school has a second-hand uniform sale every year and everyone is encouraged to go down that route rather than anything else. You cannot tell as everyone that is in a uniform that maybe older and it does not matter. It is probably a badge of honour at this stage.

I have seen Ms Byrne's video for Focus Ireland.

It is powerful and incredibly moving. It is a great tribute to the witnesses and to the team that assisted in putting it together. They are championing a positive outcome. It is a difficult journey to get there. I would be interested in hearing more about that. One difficulty that would regularly come across my desk is where families are evicted because they have outgrown the home that they are in and find themselves homeless. A two-bedroom apartment might come available but the city council will not give that to a family because the family needs a three-bedroom apartment, but in the interim, while waiting for a three-bedroom apartment, they are in one hotel bedroom in Sheldon Park or a similar place. I find that extraordinarily frustrating. There are no words for it, especially when special needs are concerned. While I think we need to have policies at local authority level about the allocation of homes, at the same time, it seems that we could have something in place on a temporary basis.