Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have not been to all the hubs but I have been to some of them. I understand that the children's Ombudsman did not visit all of them. I think he visited eight and interviewed 80 children, which is quite comprehensive.

We are guided by the NGOs which provide the services, through local authorities, in these individual family hubs. In some of them, the families themselves determine the rules on how the hubs operate but, of course, one must have child protection and security measures in place also. In terms of rules and the contracts in place, not every hub is the same. Indeed, the infrastructure in different hubs is also somewhat different, depending on the property being used and how it has been adapted, etc. Space issues are different and facilities are different within different hubs but we are trying to make sure that there is at least a commonality and a benchmarking of standards across all of them.

As I said, there is nothing to hide here in terms of what we have invested in, but these are temporary measures. We want to make sure that they are as good as they can be as temporary emergency accommodation for families but, ultimately, the answer here is more social housing.

By the way, the direct answer to Deputy Howlin's question is that visitors are allowed into many of the family hubs.

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