Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Private Members' motion. I commend Fianna Fáil on bringing it forward.

I like the title of the Minister's speech, which is "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." I suppose that is true. How ironic that it is a quote from Nelson Mandela.

I welcome that the Minister stated he was "committed to providing an education system that breaks down barriers for children". Breaking down barriers and thinking outside the box is something we must do because the circumstances are different now than what they were ten or 20 years ago.

My colleague, Deputy Funchion, covered many issues but I want to look at the impact on families of emergency accommodation, be it hubs, hotel rooms or bed and breakfast accommodation, from a mental health perspective. It is well documented that children who experience homelessness show high levels of mental health issues. One of the significant ones that comes through my office week in, week out is that of parents, but also children, with severe high anxiety. When one is in a tight-knit little hub or room and there is a lot of friction in the family, the parents, many of whom have jobs but just cannot afford the crazy rents, are fighting. The children see this and the anxiety levels go up and up.

There is also an issue with stigma. We spoke about stigma within the mental health system, but the stigma of being homeless is soul-destroying. This is especially so for young teenagers, I suppose, because they are more clued in when they are going to school. The embarrassment of not bringing friends home starts social isolation. What happens is that children who live in emergency accommodation isolate themselves. This leads to another issue where they lose their social interaction skills, turn into loners and break their own self-esteem down. The knock-on effect of that, because one is still stuck in a small room, is that the parents see the exact same thing.

Some of the Members spoke a while ago about supports. We also must support the teachers 100% financially. Nobody expects to get anything for nothing: the way the country is now one would have to earn a disease now, one does not get it for free anymore. We also must properly resource training programmes for teachers. The onus is not only on teachers. The onus is on the community itself because, as I said, there is a horrible stigma attached to homelessness - there has always been a stigma attached to mental health.

The Minister also mentioned in his opening comments specific to Dublin that some, through the initiative of the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, could be entitled to free public transport. I would like to flag that need in rural areas. I guarantee that, although this is only April, we will be in here probably at the end August raising with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport that children cannot even get on school buses in rural areas. It is merely another matter the Minister needs to flag.

I am conscious of the considerable impact, not only in classrooms, in schools and in the community, but on the individual, if we keep supporting and implementing policies that are damaging to the housing crisis. We have that currently. We have the national emergencies and the scandals in housing. Even though we support the motion, I reiterate it is Fianna Fáil that is keeping Fine Gael in power here and Deputy Thomas Byrne cannot talk out of both sides of his mouth. While we support the motion, let us be real and say that if we want to do something positive, let us do it and not talk about it.

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