Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this opportunity to speak on the report by Dr. Niall Muldoon on child poverty, A Better Normal. One of the themes in the report was housing and child homelessness, which is a big issue. Whether it is children who are living in the box bedroom with their mothers and fathers or families that are separated because of high rents with the father living in his family home and the mother living in her family home and the children being separated, there is a wide range of issues around child homelessness.

I am the Sinn Féin spokesperson on mental health, as the Minister knows. We had a good meeting of the Sub-Committee on Mental Health yesterday and one of the themes that came up was this cross-departmental approach. The Minister mentioned in his opening statement that this is something that is needed. It needs political will and for the Minister and other Ministers in Cabinet to have this cross-departmental approach and to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks because children are falling through the cracks. These are children who are vulnerable and who are in this situation through no fault of their own.

I mentioned mental health and I spoke about it at the protest on housing we had last week out the front. I have been around the block, I have been through an awful lot over my life and I am from an area of high disadvantage but some things still really get to me. I remember allowing families to use my phone because they had run out of credit because they were ringing hotel after hotel looking for accommodation for themselves and their families that night. I saw the look of desperation and the fear in their children's eyes every time the parent was told there was no room at the inn that night. I saw the parents, as any parent would, trying to shield their children from this. It was harrowing and horrific. When they were eventually told there was a room for the night, more often than not they would have to grab all of their belongings and put their children onto a bus and then another bus just to get one night's accommodation somewhere. If that will not have a long-term impact on children and cause them to experience trauma, I do not know what will.

I saw in the report that child homelessness has dropped by a good bit and that is welcome. We have to bring the factor of Covid into that, including the regulations that were brought in during Covid such as the ban on evictions. The ban on evictions had a huge impact on the number of families that were experiencing homelessness. I have no doubt that child homelessness will rise again because the ban on evictions is not there any more. This is not aimed at the Minister but I was listening to some of his Government colleagues and crocodile tears came into my eyes because the policies the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Governments over the years have brought in have led to this housing situation whereby we are putting children after developers and investors. That is no way to run a modern society.

The report states that family hubs are only meant to be there on a short-term and emergency basis. I know families that have been in these family hubs for a couple of years at this stage. That has an impact on children as they cannot bring their friends over for sleepovers and there are curfews for the older children so that they cannot stay out beyond a certain time at night. The older children may have to turn off the lights in the bedroom they all share because the younger sibling is going to bed. Some hubs do not provide residents with the capacity to cook their own food so they are relying on the food that is on offer. This all has long-term effects on children.

On food poverty, in my area of north Clondalkin, in Quarryvale, there is a fairly successful food bank operated by Quarryvale Family Resource Centre and managed by Karin Jonsson called the Clondalkin Cares Food Bank. I spoke on the phone to Karin before this meeting and learned there were 40 households depending on food from the food bank in September 2020. In September 2021, there are 110 households depending on food from the food bank. That shows the number of families that are in food poverty. If one does not have the basic needs of food in one's stomach or a secure roof over one's head, it is very difficult for any child to go to school and to be able to learn and progress.

Unless radical changes are brought about, I do not want to be here next year talking about the same things again without solutions coming in. It is incumbent on the Minister as the Minister with responsibility on this to get his Cabinet colleagues and start working on a cross-departmental approach to child poverty. That is the way forward.

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