Dáil debates

Thursday, 21 July 2016

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions

Homeless Persons Supports

3:00 pm

Photo of Michael HartyMichael Harty (Clare, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

4. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs her views that the spectre of 2,177 children having to be housed in emergency accommodation is a blight on the nation; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23370/16]

Photo of Michael HartyMichael Harty (Clare, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Does the Minister agree that the spectre of 2,177 homeless children living in emergency accommodation is a blight on the nation requiring an emergency Government response and will she comment on the matter? Since I submitted this question, the number of homeless children has risen to more than 2,200. It needs an urgent response.

Photo of Katherine ZapponeKatherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The problem of homelessness is a key priority of mine, and of the Government. I welcome the Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness which we published on Tuesday. It is the Government's ambition that within a year's time we will not be reliant on emergency accommodation to house children and families. The plan also seeks to ensure that families and children are supported as much as possible while they are in the emergency accommodation.

To this end, the action plan includes the following additional measures to assist families in emergency homeless accommodation to mitigate the challenges they face. Additional dedicated child support workers will be appointed in an initiative by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. My Department will ask the city and county child care committees to liaise with homeless families and assist them in accessing early years services. Anew specific scheme will also be designed for the purpose from existing resources. Home-school-community liaison and school completion staff will assist children and families experiencing homelessness to maintain regular school attendance and prioritise them within the school completion programme. A pilot project will be introduced to support the family functioning of homeless families currently in emergency accommodation. The nutritional needs of families and children will be reviewed and solutions proposed. Tusla will provide additional emergency refuge accommodation spaces so that victims of domestic violence forced to leave the family home do not find themselves homeless. A new facility with accommodation for pregnant women who are homeless will be provided by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, with my Department and Tusla supporting the service.

I will work closely with my colleagues in the Government and all relevant agencies to ensure we address this issue as a matter of importance.

3:10 pm

Photo of Michael HartyMichael Harty (Clare, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

All the actions spoken of by the Minister in the past few months do not address the fundamental problem of providing these children with a home, as opposed to supplying them with services while they are homeless. The psychological damage that these children are subjected to is predictable and avoidable. Not being able to have a normal life, which we would all have taken for granted growing up, is very hard to imagine. It is about not having a safe place or address to call their own, in which children can develop and grow, anchoring them in the community. It is about not having a place they can share with their friends and truly be themselves. It is about not being able to sit at a family table and enjoy a home-cooked meal. These are the psychologically damaging deficiencies that these children are subjected to. Will the Minister consider having child homelessness as her number one priority for children under her care?

Photo of Katherine ZapponeKatherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Deputy Harty outlines his concerns with great eloquence and I do not disagree with anything he identified, except for his initial point. The actions I identified will be helpful and I hope they will enable in a very significant way the children in homeless and emergency accommodation to find ways to move towards a sense of normality, in spite of the fact they are homeless or in emergency accommodation. It is a significant part not only of our plan but of our movement towards taking away any sense of homelessness for children. That is the part of the plan within my brief. Outside the brief there are a huge number of actions within a number of other settings of the plan to help reduce the child homelessness spoken of by the Deputy.

Photo of Michael HartyMichael Harty (Clare, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

There will be 47,000 new social houses provided under the housing action plan. By providing 2% of those, 1,000 families with children in homelessness could be taken out of that condition. It is quite unbelievable that in Ireland in 2016, the number of homeless children is increasing month after month, now exceeding 2,200. Homelessness is a deeply unhealthy state, particularly for children, and it is completely unacceptable in a modern society that this should be the case. Child homelessness is a social and political failure. This Government's response to child homelessness should be the issue on which this Government stands or dies, not water or bin charges, which pale into insignificance when compared with not having a home at all. I request that the Minister devote her time and energy to eliminating child homelessness before Christmas.

Photo of Katherine ZapponeKatherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Of course it is an absolute political priority of mine, as the Deputy is aware. I thought it critical to identify a number of short-term measures to ensure homeless children do not experience lasting damage. Having listed some of those key actions that I will be driving to implement, I expect the Deputy to agree that they may help to provide a more normal or better experience while they are in that position.

As a member of the Government sitting around the Cabinet table, working with all my colleagues to ensure the plan is implementable, regardless of whether it is inside or outside the brief, our ambition is to have no children dependent on emergency accommodation within a year. It is a high ambition. If we can implement these actions with the support of all our colleagues and others outside the Chamber, we will take care of the problem of child homelessness.