Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I had prepared a script but I am going to leave it to one side. Deputy Munster and Deputy Casey have very eloquently illustrated the reality. There are 3,000 children in this country who are getting up bright and early at 7.10 a.m. to catch two or three buses to cross the city to their schools. They are embarrassed and ashamed of their situation and, through no fault of their own, worried about going to school and being teased. They come home to their mothers and fathers who try to explain to them that some day soon they will be allocated a house. In reality, however, they know it could take three months, six months or, perhaps, even a year. They hope that the next day will be better and that some day soon the nightmare will end. They try to do their homework with clothes drying on clothes horses outside pokey bathrooms and go to the chipper for dinner after a long day at school because there are no cooking facilities or food in their accommodation. Parents worry about the quality of the food their children are getting. This can go on for inordinate amounts of time.

I have been dealing with a particular family who I am glad to say have been allocated a house. What they went through over the previous year, however, was incredible. This couple and their two children were living in a hotel and the man's partner was pregnant with twins. Until a few weeks ago, they were extremely worried about how they would find another hotel to accommodate a family of six. Of course, the parents were also worried about how they were going to manage Santa and the children were worried about how Santa was going to find them. This is the reality in the State and it is the greatest scandal of our times. I acknowledge that there is no desire on the part of Government to see this crisis continue but the policies it and its predecessor have pursued have not been adequate. They have not dealt with the crisis and I am concerned that they will not deal with the crisis any time soon. Next Christmas, we may still have several thousand children who are worried about how Santa is going to reach them and parents who do not know when the nightmare is going to come to an end. We need a radical shift in direction and we need to get these children and families into permanent homes.

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