Ombudsman hopes children’s unit will ‘lead’ on ending family homelessness

The Children’s Ombudsman has said the Taoiseach’s children’s unit should lead the Government’s attempts to end families in emergency accommodation in the next two years.

Latest figures by the Department of Housing show there were 11,988 people in emergency accommodation in March, the highest level ever according to the official tally.

This includes 1,639 families with 3,472 children.

When Leo Varadkar took over as Taoiseach in December, he announced a unit would be set up within his department to focus on reducing child poverty and improving wellbeing.

He told the Dail last month the unit had been established and would focus on childcare, reducing the cost of education and tackling family homelessness among other issues.

The Fine Gael leader said that assignment to the new dedicated programme team “is well under way” and the aim was to make “a tangible difference to the lives of children and their families”.

“We’ve engaged with them and we feel that there’s a real opportunity for them to make a difference and to make things happen,” Dr Niall Muldoon told the PA news agency on Tuesday.

“One of the things we’re asking for is that that idea, that they would be the ones leading to make sure that the children and families in homelessness are taken out of homelessness in the next year to two years, and that the cause of it is dealt with.

“We hope they will lead on that.

“We hope they will lead on free education for more and more children, and also to drive forward the free hot meals as well.

“So, things that deal with poverty, that deal with children’s rights at the core, where they need to be safe, secure and well fed in order to get the other rights justified.

“I would hope that that unit will be a really, really important initiative on behalf of the Government in the next two years.”

He said there are around 1,900 to 2,000 families with children who are homeless.

“We could take them out tomorrow,” he said.

“We produced 9,000 social and affordable housing last year, and every year. We need to start putting [children] as a priority and then making sure no other families fall into homelessness again.”

Dr Muldoon said of ending child homelessness in the next two years: “I would like to see them do that, I certainly would hope they commit to it, it would make a huge difference to many, many people, and many families, and also make sure that nobody falls into it afterwards.”