Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to speak and Deputy Thomas Byrne for bringing forward this motion.

I welcome that the Minister stated he accepts this motion and he is not objecting to it.

I also compliment the work the Children's Rights Alliance has put into it, and particularly Dr. Geraldine Scanlon and Ms Gráinne McKenna who compiled this report. Before Christmas, myself and Deputies Darragh O'Brien and Thomas Byrne met the Children's Rights Alliance and I am delighted it has come here this evening for this debate.

Yesterday, in the audio-visual room, they brought home the impacts on the families and on the children. When one goes into it, one hears of families getting up at 5.30 a.m. to ensure that they wake their children so that they catch the bus, and the children are falling asleep en route to school. There is shame and stigma, as other Deputies have said, attached to it. Sometimes they do not disclose to teachers what they are undertaking and what their hardship is because they do not want people to know and they do not want to reach out. I believe that if one has a mechanism of gathering that information, one can support such children who are coming in where the shame is removed from it.

At our meeting before Christmas, Deputy Darragh O'Brien spoke about a school in his area where there were a number of homeless families and where they help in providing the lunch box. Different classes bring in a spare lunch. Nobody knows who is providing the lunch or who that lunch is for, but it ensures that every child in the classroom will have a lunch. Some families do not have the opportunity to prepare. They do not have the funds to have a nutritionally balanced lunch with a piece of fruit, protein and carbohydrates, which we teach them all about. This motion is to ensure the gathering of data so that we can support such families.

The extension of the July provision to such children that we speak about in the motion is correct because these children are so exhausted they are losing out on education. I do not know how one could bring it about or how one would make it work, but they are missing out. It will impact them when they head into junior cycle or leaving certificate. It might not impact them at that particular point in time but if people continue in emergency accommodation for longer than six months, it has an impact. What of these children's right to education in the long term? They are in the position not of their own making. We should look at how we could support them. The best way we can support them is by providing the enhanced additional educational needs to ensure they can achieve in their junior certificate or leaving certificate so that they have a prosperous future.

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