Ms Mary Hayes:

Any transition from an institution is probably one of the most fragile times in a life. That includes hospital discharges, prison discharges and as the Senator accurately said, children leaving care are already an identifiable group that we know is at high risk of homelessness. Where they are active, youth steering groups are incredibly good and effective at identifying those who are at the highest risk. What we do in the Dublin regions is, we support capital assistance scheme, CAS, acquisitions for children leaving care which we can then target directly at young people leaving care. Tusla approached us and Dublin City Council certainly about unplugging some of its transitional accommodation for people who have aged out of care. We need to look at some options. I am interested, along with my colleagues in Limerick, in the shared living model. We find that with some of the young people we will have to look at different models from those to which we are accustomed. While not recommended for any other group, unconditional transitional accommodation is probably suitable for young people leaving care in terms of supporting them to help to learn independent living skills, in some but not all cases. Broadly speaking, the youth homelessness strategy is conscious of all those actions. There are good people on the strategy group. It remains to be seen how we implement it. A report is due out shortly.