Government's housing initiatives are failing children, says ombudsman
Dr Niall Muldoon told the Oireachtas Committee on Housing that families and children are 'sinking' in homelessness, despite Ireland being the third richest country in the world.
Advertisement
He told the committee that children being forced to live in emergency accommodation will affect every aspect of their lives, from development, education and self-worth.
Dr Muldoon has called on the Government to bring in specific measures to address child and family homelessness.
The committee was told that the State has been aware of family homelessness since 2015.
'We said we need to focus on families and children. We feel that has not been taken on board,' Dr Muldoon.
Advertisement
He said that focus has been placed on investment in private properties and landlords but that 'we don't hear about children suffering at hands of the crisis'.
'There was talk of bringing in a constitutional right to housing – that didn't happen. There is a consistent failure to bring children into the discussion (about homelessness),' he added.
Rory Hearne said that children are invisible in homelessness. Photo: Niall Carson/PA
'Children are seen as an add-on.
'Children have rights to housing and shelter and when they don't have it, it is devastating. Every initiative seems to fail and not even consider children. That is our exasperation.'
Advertisement
As of February, there were 4,653 children experiencing homelessness.
This represented a significant increase, with 483 more children experiencing homelessness compared to February last year.
Mary Hayes, director of the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, said homelessness in Dublin is 'relentless'.
Ms Hayes told the committee there is 'an acute need' for large accommodation to meet the needs of families in the capital.
Advertisement
'We are concerned about the drivers of homelessness, we have to respond and react to them,' she added.
'There has been a relentless increase in homelessness and we cannot keep pace of housing supply.
'I have some hope for the private rental to address security of tenure. I think there should be things to support people better with rent arrears. I do not want to give up.'
Dr Muldoon said that children living in emergency accommodation are facing an 'abnormal childhood'.
Advertisement
He also warned of the dangers of normalising child homelessness.
'The normalisation for the child will make them think, this is all I deserve, no one is coming to help me. That will effect them for their entire life.
'There are solutions that should have been put in place a long time ago.
'It's about trying to create a world where we say you are worth us changing this.'
Tricia Keilthy, head of policy at the Ombudsman for Children's Office, said there should be an emphasis on ensuring prevention is funded properly.
Ms Keilthy also called for a full incorporation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
'That is the radical change we need,' she added.
Social Democrats TD and spokesman for housing, Rory Hearne, said that children are invisible in homelessness.
He also queried whether there would be a future redress scheme for child homelessness as the state is failing to protect them.
Ireland
Homeless figures hit 'shocking' all-time high of m...
Read More
Nuala Ward, from the Ombudsman for Children's Office, said: 'We hear about children sitting in bathrooms while their mammies put their younger siblings to bed.
'We have heard from children, that shame does not leave you and that is what we are doing to children.
'Should there be a redress scheme? Can you give children back their childhoods? No, you can't.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Trump hand-delivered Putin a letter from First Lady Melania on ‘plight of children in Ukraine and Russia': White House
President Donald Trump hand-delivered Russian President Vladimir Putin a letter from First Lady Melania Trump on the 'plight of children in Ukraine and Russia,' according to a new report that cites White House officials. Trump met with Putin for nearly three hours on Friday at a U.S. military base in Anchorage, Alaska. In their first meeting in six years the two leaders discussed the war in Ukraine. Trump has pushed for peace in the region but no ceasefire deal came out of the talks. Melania Trump, who was born in Slovenia, wrote Putin a letter that mentioned the abductions of children in the over three-year war, which Trump gave to Putin at the summit, two White House officials told Reuters. The Independent has reached out to the White House for comment. While the exact number of missing children remains unclear, the Institute for the Study of War reported in March Ukraine verified nearly 19,500 children have been deported by Russia. But the research non-profit said, 'The true figure is likely to be much higher because Russia frequently targets vulnerable children without anyone to speak for them.' In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin, accusing him of the war crimes of unlawfully deporting children and unlawfully transferring them from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the questions raised by the ICC 'outrageous and unacceptable,' Reuters reported at the time. He also mentioned Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of the court, so 'any decisions of this kind are null and void' for the country. Prior to Friday's summit, Trump had spoken on the phone with Putin on several occasions, but it didn't seem to move the needle on the war in Ukraine. In recent months, Trump grew more frustrated with the Russian leader, as he continued his military campaign in Ukraine. Last month, Trump talked about Melania reminding him of the deadly toll of Russia's bombardments on Ukraine. 'I go home, I tell the first lady, 'I spoke to Vladimir today, we had a wonderful conversation.' And she says, 'Oh really, another city was just hit,' he said from the Oval Office. During a joint speech to reporters Friday, where neither leader took questions, Trump called his meeting with Putin 'very productive.'
Reuters
4 hours ago
- Reuters
Melania Trump sends letter to Putin about abducted children
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Aug 15 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's wife, Melania Trump, raised the plight of children in Ukraine and Russia in a personal letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, two White House officials said on Friday. President Trump hand-delivered the letter to Putin during their summit talks in Alaska, the officials told Reuters. Slovenian-born Melania Trump was not on the trip to Alaska. The officials would not divulge the contents of the letter other than to say it mentioned the abductions of children resulting from the war in Ukraine. The existence of the letter was not previously reported. Russia's seizure of Ukrainian children has been a deeply sensitive one for Ukraine. Ukraine has called the abductions of tens of thousands of its children taken to Russia or Russian-occupied territory without the consent of family or guardians a war crime that meets the U.N. treaty definition of genocide. Previously Moscow has said it has been protecting vulnerable children from a war zone. The United Nations Human Rights Office has said Russia has inflicted suffering on millions of Ukrainian children and violated their rights since its full scale invasion of Ukraine begun in 2022. Trump and Putin met for nearly three hours at a U.S. military base in Anchorage without reaching a ceasefire deal in the war in Ukraine.
The Sun
7 hours ago
- The Sun
I walked streets of Washington and saw scenes straight from disaster movie after terrifying breakdown in law and order
THE armoured vehicles were stationed in position, troops in combat fatigues buzzed around and temperatures headed towards 33C. But this wasn't a scene from Iraq or Afghanistan. We were standing in Washington DC, the birthplace of American democracy. 4 4 Donald Trump's decision to send in the National Guard was met with outrage, but a tour of the capital's streets by The Sun revealed, in just one single night, a terrifying breakdown in law and order. Washington's Lincoln Memorial is such a symbol of America that it features on the five-dollar bill. But the monument now serves as a backdrop to row after row of tents where homeless people are massed in a camp which looks like the cross-Channel migrant 'jungle' in Calais. Rubbish was strewn everywhere, and the occupants were clearly in it for the long haul. One had even somehow set up a washing machine. Under a nearby bridge, mattresses and glass beer bottles lay scattered everywhere. Piercing scream I have never seen so many homeless in a city. Within 30 seconds of arriving at the world-famous Union Station, I was confronted by a woman lying on the floor, with her trousers falling down. More rows of homeless were slumped outside a library just a street away from the White House, and they took no heed of Trump's warning – telling me: 'We are never leaving.' Some had been smoking what they told me was super-strength cannabis, and were lying comatose on the floor unable to wake up. A security guard at a nearby Hilton hotel said: 'You think this is crazy? You should have seen it last week. There was a shooting nearby.' Five US cities where Donald Trump could next launch militarized crime crackdown as DC launch exposes Democrat failures He claimed that at the weekend, kids go to party and take fentanyl – a drug said to be more dangerous than heroin – on the rooftop of a nearby hotel. Its swimming pool sits a matter of yards from the Capitol, home of America's parliament. One such get-together ended in a shooting – and when I left town the killer was still on the loose. Not far away was a posh restaurant where the cheapest glass of wine will set you back 15 dollars. But diners peering through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows can see the canvas of a tent and half a dozen homeless people shouting and swearing. Locals say they are a group out of their minds on crack cocaine. One man verbally abused me as he held a sign condemning 'the human race' and another was seen shouting at a little girl that she was a 'b***h', because she didn't give him a dollar. Suddenly, there was a piercing scream and a woman had been knocked over by a speeding car. Later, in scenes straight from a Hollywood disaster movie, we witnessed hundreds of FBI officers being briefed at a base near one of Washington's most dangerous neighbourhoods, Anacostia. One by one, their cars left the centre in dramatic fashion. That evening's mission: A crackdown on 'bloodthirsty criminals'. We attempted to take a leaf out of the FBI's book and venture into the neighbourhood ourselves but swiftly realised that was a bad idea, as masked gangs loitered on the streets looking for trouble. As we cruised back to town, we spotted six blacked-out SUVs full of Drug Enforcement Administration officers armed with machine guns stopping a car and arresting a wrong 'un. A crazed man sat in just his underpants at a bus stop he had turned into a makeshift home, and was terrifying people. A woman coming home from work was so scared she jumped on the wrong bus just to escape from him. He had taken fentanyl and, when he saw us, put his middle finger up. Another man was half-naked and trying to dance with scared tourists who just wanted to see the city's famous landmarks. It seemed the men who Trump called 'drugged-out maniacs' were lurking around almost every corner. And his plan was in full force, as nearly every street had a police car parked up, or a special agent. There were too many of them to count. 4 4
