Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Byrne. I always believe education is one of the best ways to enable people to exit poverty. I mentioned earlier that there are young kids getting involved in criminality in my area. Education is key to preventing that from happening. They can never take it away from you. Once you have an education, they can ever take it away. They might take your home at some stage, they could take your freedom at some stage, but they will never take your education or your knowledge away from you.

I have seen in my own local authority over the years that very good motions were put down in regard to trying to provide extra assistance for people in homelessness. For example, a couple of years ago, a motion was put down in regard to moving councillors’ overseas expenses, which were never used in my time on the local authority, to create a bursary for people in homeless accommodation or who had experienced homelessness in order for them to go back into education. That was voted down by the members of the local authority at the time. This is what I am saying. We need to have joined-up thinking and we need to all be on the same page.

I greatly appreciate all of the feedback and the contributions today.