Dáil debates

Thursday, 18 April 2019

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions

 

12:10 pm

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There are currently 3,784 children who are homeless. That figure is constantly changing. Every week, families exit homelessness. However, the problem under this Government is that a greater number enter homelessness annually than leave. Homelessness is an experience that has affected tens of thousands of people over the last decade. It has a deep scarring affect on society. Today's report by the Ombudsman for Children, Dr. Niall Muldoon, gives voice to the experience of children living in family hubs that the Government has provided as temporary accommodation. The Ombudsman for Children stresses the deep emotional impact that this is having on children who have expressed feelings of guilt, shame and anger because of their living circumstances. This is despite the fact that these circumstances are totally outside their control.

My colleague, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, has acknowledged that family hubs were designed to do better than what was there, namely, hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation, because at least they provide cooking and laundry facilities and a play space for children. However, this report points to a range of restrictions that seem inexplicable, completely unnecessary and punitive. People in family hubs cannot have guests. Why is that? Children in family hubs must be accompanied at all times by their parents. Families are living in single rooms with a lack of privacy. Is it such a security or safety issue in these locations that those draconian measures are required? Family hubs fall far short of the standards we expect for normal decent housing. Families are staying in them for much longer than they should. If we have family hubs, pending a housing supply adequate to meet need, why do we put punitive regimes in place in these hubs?

Why are people's basic freedoms, such as being allowed to have guests or having the normal degree of personal privacy, denied?

The central issue here is that standards of conduct are being imposed on them. What is the basis for that? Can it be justified and what is the Department's justification, or is it simply the State telling people how to behave? This is an echo of the poorhouses of old and the State restricting the basic freedoms of people in a way that can only, objectively, as the Ombudsman has said, be seen as punitive.

People who are homeless have done nothing wrong. They are simply people who due to a set of circumstances find themselves unable to afford to house themselves. Can the Tánaiste clarify what exactly are the rules imposed on families in these hubs? To what extent do the rules go beyond the normal tenant rules that we would have for local authority tenants? If there is a different, why?

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