Lorraine Clifford Lee (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Senator Ruane raised the issue of rough sleepers. She made the valid point that we should not lose sight of rough sleepers. Now that more families are falling into the homeless cycle the focus has gone off rough sleepers. The Senator quite rightly pointed out that we need to resume our focus on rough sleepers. They have high needs and high dependencies and I ask the Minister to address the matter.

Senator Conway-Walsh referred to Fianna Fáil and its lack of investment in families. I want to point out to the House, and in particular to Senator Conway-Walsh, that Fianna Fáil introduced special needs assistants and increased child benefit. We also introduced a free preschool year that levelled the playing field for children in low-income families, which is something that we are very proud of.