Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I suppose the category that most comes to mind is people experiencing family breakdown. For example, a middle-aged man or woman with young children may just not feel safe going into emergency accommodation. He or she could be staying with a brother or his or her mother and therefore would find it very difficult to access the housing market. We know that homeless HAP is one of the key ways for people to access the higher rate of HAP. If people in such circumstances cannot access the homeless HAP, they cannot access HAP as a solution and therefore cannot provide a secure environment where they can enjoy full custody of the children in their care. I go back to the point that by not having access to emergency accommodation, people are locked out of a solution that they would be very much willing to adopt. They are not able to get on the first rung of the ladder because, as they tell me all the time, they feel they would not survive in emergency accommodation where there are high levels of substance misuse.