Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To come back to Mr. Mullins on housing, I was working with a lady in Cork who was refused housing because when the Garda check was done, she had a conviction for having cannabis for personal use. This is a woman with four children, three of whom are on the spectrum, and she was taken off the list for a year. Thankfully, she was housed recently, after a year or maybe a year-and-a-half's battle. She had been a victim of domestic abuse and what she had gone through only all came out afterwards in court. When we are looking at decriminalisation, it would probably have made a huge difference for this woman. She was blocked from getting a house for at least a year and a half just for having cannabis, and it turned out she had been forced to hold it for her ex-partner, her abuser.

As regards women in particular, Ms Kearney may be interested to know I met a group last year from the Belfast women's trust. They had a one-stop shop that offered services for women in addiction. We do not have that in Cork.

To come back to a point Mr. Mullins made earlier, in Cork at this moment in time, if you are in recovery and you are homeless, your best bet is to sleep on the streets because if you go into Cork Simon Community, which does great work and of which I am a great supporter, you are in the middle of people who are in the throes of addiction. If you are in recovery, your best bet is to sleep on the streets. How could that be right in this day and age? What should we be doing to stop it?