Mr. Jim Gibson:

The circumstances may include no place to play or cook, which are important things. We work with strategic partners throughout Ireland to ensure families can have somewhere to go to do basic things like wash clothes or have space for homework clubs or other activities. In the emergency hotel environment parents are often trying to keep their children quiet and they cannot play. They are in confined spaces. The parents do not have private space to have a discussion about things.

We work through our family support network, which is very well established. We gave information to the committee previously. We have 120 family support networks. We have family support co-ordinators who engage with families who are homeless. We listen to those in families who are homeless. They do not want a flag up saying they are homeless. The report of the Ombudsman for Children included testimony from children who spoke about their experiences of being homeless. They spoke of shame and how they managed that within a day-to-day setting. We work with our educational welfare service, the school completions programme and the home school community liaison services. Where there is reporting of school non-attendance, we are sympathetic. We work with parents and engage with them in resolving the problems of non-attendance at school. The family support services are set up to listen to parents and children as opposed to prescribing how we can fix the challenges they have in homelessness. Deputy Rabbitte will be aware of the My World Triangle that we use as a methodology to engage with parents and children about how they perceive their needs and describe their needs to us. We describe what services are available that we can connect them with to assist them in any of the issues they experience.