Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government is publishing a report today that calls for a national homeless family strategy that focuses on the needs of children. The Labour Party has been calling for this for some time. My colleague, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, introduced the Housing (Homeless Families) Bill 2017, which passed Second Stage in the House in March 2018. Some 20 months later it has not been enacted. In the Dublin region there are now 3,873 children in homelessness. This is an all-time high. The situation is significantly worse than 20 months ago when Deputy Jan O'Sullivan introduced her Bill. The housing committee will ask today that the best interests of children be taken into account by local authorities when they provide homeless accommodation and other supports. Despite the central importance of the family in the Constitution, when a person becomes homeless his or her situation is individualised and there is no statutory basis for consideration of what is best for a family or for the children in a family. The Labour Party Bill would oblige housing authorities to recognise families as units in homelessness and to have specific regard to the best interests of children.

There are also 936 young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 years who are currently homeless. This is due to the cliff edge that arises for young people as soon as they reach 18 years of age. A young person in care who might be doing very well has all the child supports withdrawn and must navigate the difficult labyrinth of adult services, often going onto a long waiting list. It is wrong to expect young people to be autonomous from the age of 18 years and to be able to house themselves. In addition to dealing with child homelessness, we would prevent a large proportion of the homelessness of young adults if we introduced strong supports for this cohort of young people.

I strongly welcome the report of the Oireachtas committee, which also calls for an independent evaluation of family hubs and more supports for schools with pupils who are homeless. However, on the core issue of recognising the family unit and the individual rights of children, and recall that we had a referendum on that matter, the Labour Party introduced a robust Bill that would make a real difference. We have been waiting 20 months for it to be enacted. Given the findings of the Oireachtas committee, a cross-party group that examined this issue in detail, will the Tánaiste give a commitment on behalf of the Government to a timetable for the speedy enactment into law of the Labour Party's Housing (Homeless Families) Bill 2017?

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