Kathleen Funchion: Homelessness leaves 2,642 children without a home
Kathleen Funchion warned that approximately 2,642 children face spending Christmas without a home and called the situation "our generation's national disgrace." She urged colleagues to act to ensure every child has enough to eat and a safe roof over their head.
Scale of the crisis
Kathleen Funchion cited figures from the Peter Macvery Trust indicating that approximately 2,642 children would experience Christmas without a home, highlighting the immediate scale of child homelessness at the holiday period.
Impact on child health and development
She outlined multiple harms faced by homeless children - including health problems, poor nutrition, developmental delays, psychological problems and educational issues - and stressed these are long-term obstacles for affected families.
Local work and frontline organisations
Funchion paid tribute to the "excellent organisations" working daily with people at risk of homelessness and thanked her colleague Deputy Eoin O'Brien for bringing the issue forward. She noted it is a persistent constituency issue that local representatives have confronted for years.
Moral judgement and call to action
Describing the situation as "our generation's national disgrace," she urged all elected representatives to consider what they can do to ensure every child has food and a safe home, stressing that the problem cannot be allowed to continue.
We publish thousands of recordings to make Irish politics transparent and resistant to manipulation. Spotted an error? Report it — together we are building a reliable archive of Irish politics.
First of all I want to thank my own colleague Deputy Eoin O'Brien for bringing this forward and in general all the work that he does in relation to housing and homelessness that we're approaching Christmas and it's I suppose a particular time for family and a particular a special time for children and at this time the Peter Macvery Trust predicts that approximately 2,642 children would experience Christmas without a home so that's nowhere for them to play with toys nowhere for family to enjoy Christmas dinner and it's a heartbreaking situation for parents and I know parents will do their absolute best in these circumstances but realistically nobody should be in this situation we don't just have the actual sadness of imagining that situation of spending Christmas in a hotel or hostel but also you have all the various problems health problems poor nutrition developmental delays psychological problems and educational issues that are further enormous obstacles that homeless children face there are a number of excellent organizations in Ireland that you know deal with the situation on a daily basis and I want to pay tribute to them today and all of the work that they do for people at risk of homelessness and they do a fantastic job but as my colleague Deputy Farrell said earlier I think it's one of the the issues that we face in our constituency on a daily basis and it's just consistent ever since and I've said this on a number of occasions and apologize for sounding like a broken record but even since I was elected to the council in 2009 which is 11 years ago it's the issue that I consistently we deal with we cannot allow this situation to continue we really need to do our best to address it and I believe if nothing else in our this is our generation's national disgrace and I think it's incumbent on all of us to be consistently thinking what can I do to make sure that every child in Ireland has enough to eat and a safe roof over their heads we have to make sure that every child of them may purchase it we understand which we may not allow this the opening within the nation but we have to bear in turn
Thank you for downloading 🙏
If you publish this material on social media, we would be very grateful if you tagged VideoParliament. It helps us reach more people and keep building a transparent archive of Irish politics.
