Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It is absolutely discriminatory. What happens, for example, if somebody gets a job and then loses the job, but the job that he or she had and the earnings that he or she got from that were what enabled them to put a roof over his or her head, then that person loses the job through no fault of his or her own and then is back to the half-rate of a jobseeker's payment? That person is then homeless if he or she cannot go home, or possibly is left in overcrowded conditions. Yesterday, we were at a very good seminar organised by the Ceann Comhairle about mental health issues. One of the big focuses of that was the absolute crisis in youth mental health. Does the Minister think there might be any connection between youth homelessness, the serious problem in youth mental health, and the low incomes that young people who are not 18, living at home with their mums, but who are 18, 19, 20 or 21 who cannot do that, or the young people who are leaving the country?

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