Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is right in one thing: the best place for a child is in his or her home, but it is a damning indictment on his Government that 1,600 children are not residing in their homes; they are residing in emergency accommodation, and that is because of policies that this Government has pursued. I was truly shocked by the Minister's reply to a parliamentary question I submitted where he clearly abdicated his responsibility for what his Department was doing to support people and children who are living in emergency accommodation. It is not right to say that Tusla is just about taking children into care. Tusla is a new agency that was set up to support families, and we need to support these families who are living in emergency accommodation. I am not the only one to say this: we know that the Government's response to the homelessness crisis has been questioned by two international UN committees, most recently the one on the rights of the child, which the Minister himself attended. We talked about the rights of the child and on voting to enshrine the rights of our children in our Constitution three years ago. Surely the most basic, fundamental right is that of children to have a home.

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