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1st February 2024
12:10pm GMT
Ireland's homeless crisis is worsening and not enough is being done to help families who are struggling.
This Christmas, 3, 962 children were living in homeless emergency accommodation.
The number is near impossible to wrap your head around. No child deserves to spend 'the most wonderful time of the year' in a hotel room. They should be in a warm and loving home full of their loved ones.
TD Jennifer Whitmore, Social Democrats recently spoke to Her.ie's Kat O'Connor about the harrowing rise and the impact it will have on our country.
"Ireland to have this level of homelessness among children is completely unacceptable."
Whitmore said life is beyond difficult for the people behind the figures.
"Parents have had to pull their children out of school. They've had to move to different parts of the county, away from their social circles and friends.
"One thing the Government doesn't seem to grasp is we're talking about children here."
Children are unable to live the normal lives they deserve. They can't have their friends over, they can't run around in a garden or even have a pet.
The things that make childhood so special is being taken away from them.
"This Government is layering trauma after trauma on top of these children. They don't want to tell their friends."
"It's completely unacceptable that children who were already struggling are now facing even further disadvantages."
The Government has claimed the housing crisis is their focus, but is it really? With numbers this high, it's hard to accept that they are doing everything in their power to give these children a real home, one they want to grow up in.
"They clearly don't get the extent of the crisis we're in. They'll never understand the generational trauma that has been placed on these children.
"The Government says they're focused on housing, but they're not able to focus on more than one crisis at a time. We've never seen homeless levels like we have at the moment. It's shameful."
Jennifer Whitmore has asked the public to think of these children when they're voting this year.
"We need a new Government. They're incapable of solving this. We need a new Government and one that will put children first."
"We need people to put themselves in the shoes of a toddler who is learning to walk in a hotel room.
"Think of the child who can't bring their friends over, the child who can't have a dog, the child who is studying for their Leaving Cert in a hotel room," she stressed.
Remember the young girl sitting on a hotel bed doing her English homework when you're voting this year.
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