Pauline Tully
Cultural and Educational Panel · Sinn Féin · Ireland
“I acknowledge that there have been huge improvements on what is available for women, compared with a few years ago when there was nothing, but still far too often conditions affecting women are seen as a specialty or mystery when there is a range of supports and advice that women could receive through primary and community care services.”
“Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire chuig an Seanad. I welcome the Bill. We will be fully supporting it. It makes sense. It will reduce barriers for women and make access to contraception easier, which is always going to be welcome. It will also ease pressure on primary care.”
“We need to look at a better public transport system, especially looking after our older people in isolated communities. Even to support our rural pub, we need to look at some sort of incentive for a taxi service that is affordable for people, so we can maintain our rural pubs and look after our older people.”
“Community and voluntary services on the ground, which are vital for providing supports and services to many sectors of the community, including older people and younger people, are not seeing sufficient funding to help them to keep running, to recruit and retain staff within the youth sector, for example, to maintain buildings if they hav…”
“The motion that we have put forward is very broad and covers many aspects that affect us in rural life. I too am astounded by the amendment tabled by the Government because it does not call for anything, which gives the impression that everything that is needed is there, yet many colleagues across the room here ask for more gardaí in thei…”
“Sláintecare is being rolled out too slowly, so we need to see proper resourcing of community healthcare. It avoids people ending up in acute healthcare settings, which are overcrowded. I see a dangerous trend where many people are being referred from areas such as Cavan and Monaghan to Dublin for acute care.”
The complete record
Every one of 900 lines we hold for Pauline Tully, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 5 of 18.
“Sinn Féin will not be opposing this motion but there is a serious need for safeguards to be established on how the relevant data is stored and used. The proposal involves the transfer of personal data, including names, addresses and vehicle details, from the national vehicle and driver file to British authorities so the Minister must, as the Minister for justice, assure the Oireachtas robust safeguards are in place to ensure this data is not misused, retained longer than necessary or shared with third parties. Given Britain is now a third party under EU law standards of protection must be equivalent to EU GDPR.”
“I wish to clarify something here. The statement I made about nothing in the budget for disability related to the cost of disability. I was very clear about that. No double payments or energy credits were given. I did not say there was nothing in the budget for disability. I said there was nothing to address the cost of disability, which I recognise is not something in this Minister of State's Department.”
“The Indecon research into the cost of disability showed that the difference between the costs faced by a family without a person with a disability and those for a family with such a person was huge and was only increasing as the cost of living increased. There is an insufficient number of carers on the ground. The Minister of State has said there are going to be increased supports for carers but we do not have enough of them. We need to look at how we can get more home support carers in. One woman was in contact with me. She is a wheelchair user and has been very independent all her life but she is now getting older, has issues and needs support. She has been approved for home care hours but there is no carer available to fulfil those hours.”
“While strictly speaking the cost of disability also comes under a different Department, it is a huge issue. In the budgets for last year and the year before, everybody got energy credits but there were also additional payments made to people in receipt of disability payments. We heard a lot about disability in the general election campaign of 2024 but there was nothing in the first budget introduced by the new Government for people with a disability. People with a disability say they feel they are down an average of €1,400 compared to previous years. We need to see a stable cost-of-disability payment that recognises the significant additional costs to families who have a disabled member.”
“I know primary care does not come under the Minister of State's Department but under the Department of Health. However, there has to be a connection between the two. Again, I see children waiting for years for an appointment to be seen by a physical therapist, an occupational therapist or a speech and language therapist. It is the same across the board. I am also concerned that the CDNTs seem to be in the habit of saying they have had contact with a child or that a child has had a given number of appointments when this may just have been engagement with the parents or phone calls. It is not necessarily the one-to-one therapy that the child needs. That also needs to be addressed. It is almost like they are painting a better picture than is actually the case.”
“She brought her to be assessed and she was found to be autistic. She was practically non-verbal. She had about five different words. This mother was in a position to access a private speech and language therapist for her daughter. Her daughter is now 7 or 8 and speaks perfectly. This proves that, if children get the interventions they need at an early age, they can overcome many issues. A lot of children get frustrated and lash out at school or in other settings because of their inability to communicate. Speech and language therapy and finding alternative ways to communicate, whether through assistive technology or some other method, is very important. Again, that is not happening widely to ensure that children can live their best lives and cope with whatever is coming up, whether in the school setting or elsewhere.”
“We also still have quite a number of people in congregated settings. I believe 2018 was the time set to move on from congregated settings. We are now eight years on from that and there are still people there. With regard to the CDNTs, there have been improvements in their staffing levels but they are still not 100% staffed. Speech and language therapy is an issue of huge concern. There are not enough speech and language therapists. I am not even sure that the initial make-up of the teams is sufficient to deal with the increased demand and significant backlog. The Minister of State said the backlog had come down but there are still over 9,000 children on waiting lists. One mother told me that, when her daughter was about 18 months old, she realised that there was an issue with her speech.”
“I spoke to one man who was 79 and who was caring for his daughter, who was in her early 40s. She attends a day service. He told me he was not able for it any more. There is also a question of dignity here. This is a man caring for his daughter. While carers come in at certain times of the day to shower her or dress her, these are set times. They are not there every time she requires washing or so on. Like many other parents, he is afraid that, if something happens to him or he passes away, his daughter will not only be grieving for him but also having to get used to a new setting where she might know nobody. She might be far away from everything that is familiar. It needs to be dealt with immediately. It is not just about money. It is about different agencies working together to make sure this happens.”
“That means the son or daughter with an intellectual disability, autism, a physical disability or a combination of those conditions ends up being placed in a residential setting. That could be outside the county, meaning they are not able to attend their day service, to see family and friends or to live in their own community. I forget the exact number - it could be as many as 20 - but there are also quite a number of Cavan people who have been placed in residential settings outside the county. Many of them want to come back to live in Cavan and were told at the time that this was a temporary measure and that they would be facilitated in Cavan when a place became available. However, when you query those cases, you are told these people are settled, okay and already accommodated. That is not their wish or the wish of their families.”
“They organise a meeting with the HSE to discuss the allocation of housing and putting a support plan in place - I am talking about my own local authority in Cavan but I am sure it is happening across the board - and then, with very little notice, the HSE does not turn up for the meeting. There is very little engagement. I contacted the HSE in my local integrated healthcare area, Cavan-Monaghan, and asked for a breakdown of the numbers in the area. I am told there are 87 people in Cavan who are engaged as service users and who have a disability and will require housing. I am not sure if that is the full number or just the number of people the HSE knows about. I was also told there are 25 emergency cases. I assume an emergency case is a case where the parent has passed away or is no longer able to care for the person in question.”
“They do not need to be adapted if the person in question does not have a physical disability but many such people will need some sort of a care plan. That might just mean a support worker or it could mean a full-time carer. In order to allocate a house, whether from the authority's own stock or through an approved housing body, AHB, the authority needs the HSE to engage with it and to put that support plan in place, but that is not happening. When Housing for All was launched during the last Dáil term, we were assured that there would be better co-operation between local authorities and the HSE to ensure that this would happen. It is not happening on the ground. There is clear frustration on the part of the local authorities.”
“I welcome the Minister of State. The first thing I will raise is the Before We Die campaign. Like Senator Clonan, I think this is an issue of huge concern. This campaign was established by elderly parents who were caring for adult sons and daughters in their 20s, 30s, 40s or 50s and who were concerned about what was going to happen to those sons and daughters when the parents died. It is every person's right to have the option to live independently. If people do not quite know how to go about accessing housing, it seems they are just forgotten about. It is left up to them. It is seen as their responsibility. I have spoken to many parents whose son or daughter is on the county council housing list in their local area. When I engaged with the local authority, I was told it had houses ready to allocate to people.”
“The reoffending rate is only 14%, which is very low, in these countries. It is small-scale, community-integrated houses as an alternative to prison. It is still detention and it is still people being incarcerated but they are given the supports, whether addiction or mental health supports, to get into employment and education and to help them find a stable home. It costs on average €40,000 a year. When it is €40,000 versus €100,000 the argument is already won. Can a pilot programme of even one or two community detention houses be looked at initially? We could see how they operate and work. It could then be extended.”
“There are crimes being committed as a result of addiction all over the country. I know many young people who, unfortunately, have become addicted to drugs, committed crimes as a result and who are in and out of prison. They come out but they are not rehabilitated in any way. They are not supported to get into education or employment. A lot of them are homeless and some of them nearly choose to go back into prison because it is a bed for the night and food for a few days. It is just a never-ending circle that does not help anyone. It helps neither the individual nor society and it needs to be looked at. The European model that was talked about last week in the audiovisual room was very interesting. It is something that is being operated in 22 countries quite successfully.”
“We need investment in youth services, youth diversion centres, education and in areas of deprivation. Resource centres work closely with families and provide vital services but they are so underfunded. If it costs the guts of €100,000 to keep a prisoner, we should put that money into areas where families can be supported and, we hope, avoid a lot of those young people becoming involved in crime. I am aware that is not going to solve the overcrowding problem we have now but it could help prevent it happening in future. People have talked about the drug court, which is an excellent idea and has done excellent work. It was initially established in the north inner city of Dublin and now it extends to the whole county, but could something not be looked at for places far further afield?”
“We need to ask ourselves what prisons are for. As has been said, we need prisons, obviously, for those who commit very serious crimes and who are a danger to society. They need to be punished but that does not mean those places should be inhumane or that prisoners should be receiving inhumane treatment or should not receive support to rehabilitate. However, what we have is a conveyer belt of people who are being given short-term sentences for non-violent crime. More than half of the individuals - 57% - who were released from custody during 2019 reoffended within three years. For young adults that was 78%. That is a huge number that could be avoided. Last week, I brought forward a Private Members' motion on investment in youth services, which is what we need to see.”
“When asked, they said it was most likely that most of those people would not have been in prison had they received the proper supports in the community, whether for a mental health issue or a disability. Having talked to governors, there are waiting lists in prisons for psychologists and for those who require the services of the mental health hospital. Prison is not the place for people with mental health issues. Last week, we had the Minister of State, Deputy Mary Butler, in this House discussing the mental health Bill that was guillotined. She was lecturing us for not supporting that Bill, when she would not accept any of our amendments to improve it. The Minister of State needs to look at what is happening in society here and the number of people in prison as a result of the failure of the sector for which she is responsible.”
“They can sleep beside the toilet or beside the door, where they might get bashed if it is opened and they are still asleep. The situation in our women’s prisons is much worse. The Dóchas Centre and Limerick women’s prison are operating at over 150% of capacity. These figures cannot continue. We have a huge number of prisoners, I do not know the exact number, with mental health issues, intellectual disabilities and autism. I was a member of the Joint Committee on Disability Matters in the last term and we had witnesses in from the Irish Prison Service. They give us the facts and figures. These prisons are not the places to be able to provide the supports these people need.”
“I also attended the briefing in the audiovisual room last week hosted by Senator Aubrey McCarthy that included presentations from Release and the Irish Penal Reform Trust. A very compelling case was made for community-based detention. The talk started with a reference to the high numbers and overcrowding situation in our prisons. At the end of last month, 5,909 prisoners were in our prisons. That is 125% of the capacity. The figure has dropped in the past few weeks. As of last Friday, there were 5,776 prisoners. The capacity, though, is still running at 122%, and over 500 of those prisoners are sleeping on floors. As someone said, there are two people in a space the size of a car parking spot. One person is on a mattress on the floor, where they have the choice of sleeping with their head beside the toilet or beside the cell door.”
“I know it is because she and other families have spoken out about this issue that the legislation has been introduced, and rightly so. It is not that anybody queries the need for autopsies and how important the information that can be gleaned from them on the cause of death is. It is just about the consent for and the knowledge of what is happening to the bodies of loved ones.”
“I thank the Minister of State. The reply outlined the important changes that have taken place since, and they were required. Unfortunately, though, there was such a gap from when the initial investigations and reports were undertaken, which were all in the early 2000s, until the Act was passed in 2024. Paula lost her son Tadhg in that period. Had action been taken quicker, perhaps that might not have happened to her and many other families. There is also the fact that it is this one pathologist. The question is why. He was made to leave his post or was fired or whatever the terminology used was. The question is why he was then allowed to carry out autopsies in other circumstances. As Paula said, she just never got the explanation or the apology concerning what happened. That is really heartbreaking for her.”
“I ask if this matter could be looked into again. The evidence is there. We know who is responsible. I know legislation has been passed which tightens up this whole area, the Human Tissue (Transplantation, Post-Mortem, Anatomical Examination and Public Display) Act 2024, so, hopefully, it will not happen again, but I still think we need to look at and deal with the cases where it has happened.”
“It is shocking to find that years later he was still being commissioned to carry out autopsies in different hospitals around the country by the same HSE that had commissioned the report and found that he should be let go for these practices. He was still doing this. Apparently, organs were retained without permission or consultation up until 2020. It has been almost ten years since Tadhg died, and Paula and her partner and their family have never been told why Tadhg's organs were kept, have never received an apology for this and do not feel that Dr. Gillan was held accountable or responsible. As I said, Paula is not the only one to have been in this position. Many other families are in very similar positions. It is very upsetting, and still very upsetting, even after this length of time, that they feel they have been ignored.”
“Indeed, it seems he has been involved in hundreds of cases, or maybe more, similar to this one, where the organs of babies who had died at birth or who were stillborn were retained. He carried out the autopsies and retained the organs. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, concern was raised about this issue. The Government at the time did commission an expert report to investigate the scandal. The results were published in 2009, and the HSE subsequently initiated an investigation. It found that one hospital, the Rotunda, had a very different practice to a lot of other hospitals, and this was the hospital where the pathologist, Dr. Gillan, operated from. He was let go from that post on foot of these investigations.”
“The post-mortem result did not indicate in any way that the organs had issues relating to his death. In fact, it was hospital error that was the cause of her son's death. An inquest was held, so it was March 2021 before she could bury these organs. A full five years and nine months had passed after she had originally buried Tadhg. She had the horrific experience of opening up his grave and, as she said, opening her wounds of grief again, to bury him whole. In November 2022, "RTÉ Investigates" did a programme on this issue. It turns out that it was not the first time that this Dr. John Gillan - and he has been named in the programme and publicly, and he has admitted himself that he is involved - did this.”
“I was contacted by Paula, who lives in Cavan. Her son Tadhg was stillborn on Sunday, 5 June 2016 in Cavan General Hospital. She consented to an autopsy, which was carried out on 7 June and buried her little son on 9 June. Tadhg's parents received the post-mortem report on 17 November 2016, which was a period of five months later but this is not the main issue they have. A year after this, in November 2017, which was 17 months after she had buried Tadhg, she received a phone call asking what she wanted to do with her son's brain and left lung. She was absolutely shocked and horrified. She did not know her son's organs had been retained. She had never been informed or had never given permission for this. The autopsy on her son was carried out by Dr. John Gillan.”
“It is the families who are most deprived that suffer more and the supports that were in the community go also. They really hit rock bottom. I urge the Minister to please try to invest more in our youth services. The National Youth Council represents many organisations. It has engaged with the implementation plan and the review of the implementation plan. It has the figures done and it has a pre-budget submission ready. It has laid out that the organisations are under pressure and need more funding. It is vital work and we need to support it.”
“I spoke to a youth worker who works with the youth diversion programme, who said that sometimes by the time a child is referred to them and they start to work with that child they realise they also have to work with their parents and other members of the family because there are often years of trauma, including perhaps domestic violence or addiction issues. We need to start investing and youth work is vital in our societies for working with young people. We need to start investing in families and putting in supports. Our resource centres do terrific work but they are underresourced also. We need to resource all of our community supports. When there was a recession, an awful lot of this funding was cut. It is vital funding needs to be maintained, if not increased, when a recession hits and there is unemployment.”
“It is an issue for other Departments but it highlights the need for all Departments across the board to be working together in supporting our young people and supporting the workers who are working with them. Senator McCarthy brought up quite a disturbing story about the young seven-year-old boy he spoke about. It makes us cold thinking about what some children are going through. We wonder why certain services are not picking up on this and interventions are not made. I have long argued that we should invest money in communities where there is deprivation, intergenerational poverty and trauma. Money invested there would be money well spent because we would save it at the other end when we would not have to incarcerate them, which costs an awful lot more money.”
“They are under pressure to meet existing levels of service. There is a need for increase. We talked about staff, and there are excellent youth workers who are working with young people but it is very difficult to recruit and retain because of the cost-of-living pressures on these workers. They are going to go into other sectors that pay better because they cannot meet their rent or the cost-of-living pressures. Many youth workers say they are under pressure because they are filling gaps left by other agencies in society. They are providing mental health supports and counselling services and they are not necessarily qualified in these areas. This brings more pressure.”
“I thank all of the Senators who contributed to the debate. It was a very positive debate and we all agree on practically all of the points and the importance of youth work, as does the Minister. I commend all of the organisations involved in youth work, whether providing a club, service or project, and I commend all the staff, paid and unpaid. Voluntary workers do so much good work. I also commend the young people who participate. The Minister mentioned Oíche na hÓige, which was very successful when it was run a few months ago. It created awareness of youth clubs and encouraged participation. Youth clubs have said they cannot deal with the increased numbers. They are genuinely under pressure. I did not bring forward this motion because they are not and because they are getting sufficient funding.”
“They are often not qualified counsellors. They are qualified guidance counsellors but not qualified counsellors. Young people often say they do not want to talk to the same person about education and their issues or mental health issues or whatever else they want help with. That issue also came up. I am interested in hearing more about exactly when it is planned to have the implementation plan and how it is going to be implemented. We want to see the objectives reached, but I do not think that is possible, as I said, without the plan and without the proper investment.”
“Coach hire has got extremely expensive, as I have heard from groups of elderly people and young people, to go anywhere on day trips or anything like that. In some areas of Dublin, Foróige clubs have specified buses that can transport people to Emerald Park or wherever they are going for the day. If people from Cavan and Monaghan want to get up there, it is very expensive. It would cost hundreds of euro to rent a coach for the day. Those people do not have the money. They are looking for more investment in buses for youth activities to bring them on trips and different things like that. They mentioned one more issue to do with schools, which falls within the Minister's remit. That was counselling in schools. They feel too much emphasis is put on the guidance counsellor to provide counselling services.”
“It was interesting to talk to them. They were very capable young people. I asked them what their requests were. It was not specifically to do with youth work but they are involved in Comhairle na nÓg, which is outside school, even though it is facilitated through the school programme. Those young people are also involved in Foróige. As I said, they were talking about the lack of capacity. One of the things they asked was why there is no Leap card for young people to access public transport. They said that especially in rural areas, they have a ticket to get on the school bus to go to school. Why could there not be some sort of a ticket that they can buy and use on the school bus, as well as on Local Link and Bus Éireann services? Those representatives also talked to me about the lack of funding for buses for trips.”
“I fear there is going to be a rush to try to reach the objectives that are laid down in that plan and that it is going to become a box-ticking exercise and a race through. I question the governance of the implementation of the plan. No national youth work advisory committee has been established. That was provided for under the Youth Work Act but is not in existence at the moment. It was to consult with the Minister on youth work. There is talk of setting up two separate groups, but they are not yet established. I want to see that done in partnership with the sector so we ensure that those working groups can work with the Minister to implement this plan. They cannot do that without proper investment. That is vitally needed. As I said, I met the representatives of Comhairle na nÓg earlier at Youth Work Ireland.”
“A €75 million fund for that service to help people who are at risk and in disadvantaged areas would be very welcome. Opportunities for Youth is the national strategy for youth work and related services. It was launched in September 2024. That was part of the general election. There is no implementation plan for it yet and we are 19 months into the strategy. I have no issue with the strategy. There are very good objectives in it. However, they cannot be realised unless we strengthen the existing services and have an implementation plan. I cannot understand launching a strategy without an implementation plan. The current plan is for just this year and we are already into the fourth month of this year and there is no sign of an implementation plan.”
“There is no sign of that money. Perhaps the Minister will elaborate on when even that €4 million will become available. All money is welcome and will do good, but it is not sufficient to meet the need and there needs to be increased investment. The National Youth Council of Ireland is suggesting an additional €13 million in capital finding to bring it up to €17 million per year for the next four years. The young persons' facility and services fund was established a number of years ago to attract at-risk young people in disadvantaged areas, especially those where there were significant drug problems. We need to see that strengthened but we also need to extend that because there are other harms now for young people. We see that online. We see rural and social isolation. We see mental health pressures and the impacts of poverty.”
“I spoke to another young person there and she told me that in her Foróige club there are around 20 members and around 15 on a waiting list but they cannot accommodate them because the space they meet in is so small. They need a bigger space. The need is there but they cannot meet the need. We see this all over, where the spaces are there but need upgrading or we need new or increased spaces. Not every service needs its own space; it can rent a facility, but getting a space that is sufficient in size is often difficult so we need to see an increase in the capital expenditure. In the national development plan, of the €7.5 billion that was allocated to the Department of Education and Youth, only €20 million, which is 0.265%, went to youth. That is very little. It will be €4 million per year from this year until 2030.”
“There is not sufficient funding to actually address that. Youth Work Ireland had a presentation in the Freemasons' Hall today and I was speaking to people there who were from my own area of Cavan and Monaghan. I spoke to one youth worker who works in Clones. They have a wonderful youth service there but it is located in an older building. The building was a primary school at one time and it was rented to the service by the diocese. The roof is leaking and has been for years so a lot of damage has been done to the building and the service cannot afford or access funding to repair it. They need to be able to repair that building but it is not possible at the moment.”
“The current investment in existing levels of service is €90 million per year and the National Youth Council of Ireland is proposing an increase of €13 million on that, a 15% increase, to just stabilise the services. The National Youth Council of Ireland feels youth work is under pressure and needs to be stabilised and increased funding will do that. We recognise the need for multi-annual funding to allow for planning and certainty but first, the National Youth Council of Ireland wants a steady stream of investment in order that it can stabilise what is there, consolidate services on the ground, get a good base going and look at expanding from there. In regard to capital funding there are already dedicated spaces. Many of them are ageing buildings with problems and issues that are in need of upgrade.”
“They are on reduced hours and in reduced spaces but the need is growing at the same time. Some of the funding streams are quite difficult to manage and there are often significant disparities between allocated budgets and the true costs of delivery. We find that many of the workers, whether they are employed as youth workers within services or are voluntary youth workers, are spending their time worrying about covering the costs, overheads, rent and so on because everything is increasing in cost. I thank the National Youth Council of Ireland for its engagement on this motion and it has done a lot of work and research with all of the participants.”
“I acknowledge there have been moderate increases in funding over the past few years in different budgets but it is not sufficient to maintain existing service levels, because it has been negated by inflation, increased employer costs and population growth. The annual city of Dublin actual cost exercise found there was an 8.1% shortfall in necessary funding for youth services and 88% of respondents to the National Youth Council of Ireland survey recently of youth groups affiliated to the council answered they were very concerned about insufficient funding. If you do not have sufficient funding, you will have issues with the provision of the service and there are issues. There are issues with recruitment and with retention of youth workers. The staff are under pressure. They are under time pressure and are time poor.”
“Tá fáilte roimh an Aire chuig an bplé ar infheistíocht i seirbhísí don óige. I do not think I have to convince anyone here of the benefits of youth work and what it does for young people. It builds their confidence, develops skills and builds relationships - healthy ones, importantly. It supports positive mental health. We see emotional support and resilience and it encourages community involvement. The fact it is voluntary and not obligatory, like school is, makes all the difference. People choose to attend whatever youth club or project is in their area. It is usually flexible in that it sets out to meet the needs of the young people in the area who are the participants in the club. For youth work to be successful, there is a need for proper financial investment to maintain both existing levels of service and for capital investment.”
“I move: That Seanad Éireann: recognises: - youth work is defined in the Youth Work Act, 2001 as ‘a planned programme of education designed for the purpose of aiding and enhancing the personal and social development of young persons through their voluntary participation, and which is (a) complementary to their formal, academic or vocational education and training; and (b) provided primarily by voluntary youth work organisations’; - Ireland’s national policy objectives for all children and young people aged under 25 years are set out in Young Ireland: National Policy Framework for Children and Young People 2023-2028 (Young Ireland); - the EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027 provides for the European Youth Goals, which were designed and agreed by young people across Europe and represent young people’s vision for youth policy in Europe; - the publication of Opportunities for Youth: National Strategy on Youth Work and Related Services 2024-2028 in September 2024 which sets out a strategic direction for the delivery of youth services during the lifetime of Young Ireland; acknowledges: - the critical role that youth work plays in the personal, social, and educational development of young people in Ireland; - that youth work in Ireland offers essential education, connection, belonging and support to young people; - that young people in Ireland today face unique challenges and require dedicated policy, legislative and resourcing support from the Government; - the need for meaningful engagement with the youth work sector, including youth workers, volunteers, and young people themselves, in the development and implementation of policies that affect them; - that the transformative power of youth work is beneficial for young people, their families and wider communities; - that youth work is a vital profession and youth workers must be adequately remunerated for their work; - that places and spaces are required for the delivery of youth work; - that volunteers make an invaluable contribution to the youth work sector in Ireland; notes that: - investment in the youth work sector has not kept pace with rising costs and increased demand; and that the youth work sector is largely operating from a deficit and financial uncertainty; - the lack of multi-annual funding for the sector poses a severe administrative burden, planning difficulties and staff recruitment and retention challenges; - out of the total National Development Plan budget for the Department of Education and Youth, just 0.265 per cent is designated for youth affairs; calls on the Government to: - significantly increase current investment in the youth work sector to address current funding deficits; - establish a €75 million Young People’s Spaces, Facilities and Services Fund, and collaborate with other Departments, Government agencies and local authorities to ensure that young people have places and spaces to engage with youth work; - commit to moving core youth work funding to multi-annual funding within the next three years; - publish an implementation plan for Opportunities for Youth: National Strategy on Youth Work and Related Services 2024-2028, delivered in partnership with the youth work sector; - consult with the sector to identify opportunities for expanded services to meet increased demand in a way that is deliverable and sustainable for the sector.”
“They are not earning enough to look for a mortgage but they are earning too much to be on the social housing list. A lot of families are caught in that loophole and we need to address that without delay.”
“We need to see an awful lot more co-operation between local authorities and HSE to ensure the supports are put in for those people to be able to live independently. If a parent is no longer able to provide the care or passes away, that vulnerable person is put into emergency accommodation or an emergency residential setting, which is often far away from family and friends and their day service. The person is trying to cope with grieving for a lost parent as well as a new living arrangement, which is very unfair. Many families who are above the social housing threshold and have received eviction letters do not qualify for social housing or any other supports but cannot afford the enormous rents being asked for private rented accommodation and are left in limbo.”
“This is an already very vulnerable group who have been in the care system, maybe with different foster families, and are now are out on their own. They not getting sufficient support and some of them are ending up homeless as well and sleeping rough. Senator Higgins mentioned people in congregated settings and I absolutely agree with her. It also brings to mind the Before I Die campaign. This involves a large number of adults with intellectual disabilities or autism in their 20, 30s, 40s or 50s who are living with elderly parents. These adults are on the housing list but are not being accommodated, not because the the local authority is not willing to accommodate them but because the HSE is not willing to put in the care and support plan.”
“There is no out for them. There are no community-based supports, wraparound supports or the addiction or mental health supports they need to sustain a tenancy. Until we have those supports, they are going to continue to be in and out of prison causing problems in society. Some of them will actually say they sometimes end up getting sent to prison on purpose because they want somewhere warm and dry to sleep and to get a few meals, which is terrible. We need to incorporate Sharing the Vision, the mental health strategy, into our homelessness prevention framework as well, put those wraparound supports in place for people who require them and ensure they can enjoy a sustainable tenancy. I have also come across a number of care leavers who are not getting the required support to get them into accommodation either.”
“Beyond that, it has to send people to the hostel in Dundalk run by the Simon Community or down to a bed and breakfast in Roscommon. People do not want to go because they are too far away and are very hard to get to. There is no good transport route to those places and people want to stay in their own county. What happens then is that we see a lot of hidden homelessness, with people sofa-surfing or staying in their parents' box room. I see quite a number who are sleeping rough at times and then maybe staying on their friend's sofa at other times. Increasingly, a large number of young men are affected. Single people tend to be on the housing waiting list the longest. I am trying to help number of young men at the moment, many of whom have addiction problems. Some of them have been in and out of prison. It is a chicken and egg situation.”
“Many people have referred to the numbers of homeless, which continually rise. There are over 17,000 at this stage, including nearly 5,500 children. Worryingly, more and more people over 65 are facing homelessness. The fact that older people, who have lived their lives and contributed so much to the State, can find themselves in emergency accommodation is a terrible indictment of this State. I commend Cavan County Council, which does huge work in trying to prevent people from going into homelessness. The council is successful but, unfortunately, it just cannot accommodate everybody and some people have to be put in emergency accommodation. Cavan does not have any hostel. It has two bed and breakfasts that the council uses as emergency accommodation for families.”