Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In response to the first question the Taoiseach said our most valuable citizens were children. I challenge him and the Government because it is very clear to me that on his watch children are not our most valued citizens. This morning Temple Street Children's University Hospital released the figure for the numbers of children who had presented at its emergency department last year and subsequently been discharged to no fixed address. Disgracefully, that number stood at 842. They are 842 of the most vulnerable citizens of the State and I suggest they are citizens who are not valued or considered. Not alone do they need medical care in emergency departments, they also need a home. Anyone who heard the lead emergency medicine consultant in Temple Street hospital on radio this morning could not but have been shocked. He said presentations were varied and complex but that in the majority of cases they stemmed from the fact that the children were living in completely unsuitable, cramped and temporary accommodation. Not alone are they left without a home, the State also sponsors a system in which they live - I repeat - in unsuitable, cramped and temporary accommodation. That is their reality.

Of course, this is not just about numbers. If the figure from Temple Street hospital is 842 children, what is the position in every other hospital throughout the State? Is the Taoiseach able to tell the Dáil what the total number of children being discharged to no fixed abode throughout the land is? Is he able to reassure the Dáil that he understands the extent of the damage done to young lives that are destroyed before they even start, before many of them utter a word or learn their ABCs, or even before their first day at school? Most of them have never known any place called home. Instead they have known family hubs, hotel rooms and bed and breakfast accommodation, in which the mould on the walls and ceilings impacts on their ability to breathe, in which they live in cramped conditions and are scalded or burned, in which they are self-harming and in which children with cystic fibrosis, neurological disorders, autism and a disability grow up in cramped, unsuitable and dangerous accommodation.

What about their parents? Let us have a thought for them. They expect to raise their children, as we all do, in a society that exhibits some semblance of decency and in a country that has some bottom line for how we treat children. I invite the Taoiseach to share with the Dáil the true figure. What is the figure throughout the State for the number of children who are discharged from hospital into homelessness? What does the Taoiseach have to say to them and their parents?

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