Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Tacaím leis an méid atá ráite ag an Seanadóir Ó Donnghaile maidir leis an Lá Dearg. Tá súil agam go mbeidh daoine ábalta a bheith ann.

We have a very serious situation with homelessness in the State. I have raised previously the issue of homelessness in Galway.One of my colleagues in Galway City Council, Cathal Ó Conchúir, was told that there are 26 people sleeping rough in Galway at the moment and that the supports that were there to help them over the past number of months have been discontinued because of a lack of funding. That is a very serious situation, because there is no housing support available to them.

I also want to discuss an issue that I previously raised in the Seanad about the support workers in organisations such as The Simon Community and COPE, who are supported by the IMPACT trade union. They are known as the sleep-over workers, and they support people who are homeless overnight. They are paid a measly €4.50 an hour because of the situation that they are in, and still have not had their pay reimbursed even though they have had a Labour Court ruling in their favour. I do not believe the organisations in question are to blame here - they are happy to pay these moneys - but the HSE is withholding the funding. The Department for Health and the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, are responsible. Even though we have many platitudes about the plight of the homeless, it is quite clear that the Government is withholding funding to these organisations in this situation via the HSE so that they can pay those sleep-over workers. I see that strike action is possibly pending from IMPACT on this issue. I call on the Leader to use his offices, and perhaps we could have a debate here once more and discuss the situation. We have had many Government announcements and initiatives, but the particular issue of homelessness needs to be debated again.

I support the comments by Senator Bacik about the Women's Aid impact report for 2016. The figures are very stark and startling, including 20,769 disclosures of domestic violence against women and children, 3,823 disclosures of child abuse and 16,000 disclosures of domestic violence against women. The organisations that support women in these scenarios are completely under funded. For example, Domestic Violence Response, DVR, in the Connemara area is certainly struggling to cope with the level of phone calls it receives. A debate on what the Government is doing about the issue of domestic violence would be very welcome as well.