Dr. Aoibhinn Walsh:

On disempowerment, our system is one of disempowerment for many people, especially within the international protection system. Ms Mpofu mentioned it with regard to a new mother with a small baby. I wish to paint a practical picture of something as simple, basic and fundamental as food. You do not even think about it when you think about challenges facing health, well-being or overall psychological well-being. When you cannot cook your children’s food or pick what they eat; when you have not cooked them the food they have eaten for the past seven years of their life; when you have five or six children and you are a single parent in one or two rooms and you might have two children with autism spectrum disorder and one with ADHD; when you cannot bring them down to an overcrowded kitchen because it does not suit; when your child is having a temper tantrum at the time you are supposed to be booked to use a kitchen in a facility; or when I am in front of you in clinic explaining that your child is underweight or overweight and you are telling me all you have in your room is a microwave and perhaps a toaster, it impacts every aspect of these children and not just their health. I am seeing the ones in extremis, whose health has been very clearly and objectively impacted but they have four siblings with them in the room who are also clearly pale looking and clearly underweight or overweight. This is something that we know. People have two- and three-year-olds who say “I do not like this” or “I want to do this” and want to feed themselves. If you do not have a highchair, or you have nowhere to feed your picky child, you have to spoon-feed them and that results in aversive behaviours. If they are not eating, they are failing to thrive. It is the practicalities that we take away.

I see many parents who feel that if you take away the ability of a parent or caregiver to feed their child, you are taking away one of the grounding aspects of their fundamental relationship with their child. We see the clear impacts that this has. It impacts on maternal or parental mental health when they cannot feed their child. I see a selected-out population who comes to me because they are in extremis. I refer to taking away a parent’s ability to provide basic needs for their child. You talk about something easy, or not easy, but this is something across the board that we could get right. The State is contracting to have people in hotels. I see children having chicken and chips for every meal with no access to fruit and vegetables. If we are paying these hotels to support and accommodate these families, let us ensure they are at least providing them with a relatively well-balanced diet.