Children living in Cork 'with no safe space to call home', says charity

The housing crisis means vulnerable children in Cork are living in unsuitable accommodation and sharing facilities with adults from other families, “with no safe space to call home”, a charity says.

It comes as a new report shows the ever-increasing number of children in homelessness is damaging childhoods across the country.

The latest homelessness figures, released last Friday, show there were 5,014 children living in emergency accommodation nationally at the end of July. 

Precise figures for the number of homeless children in Cork were not given, but there were 183 families homeless in the south-west region, covering Cork and Kerry.

Of these, 103 children are living with their families in emergency accommodation, a 2% increase on July 2024, when the figure was 101.

Crisis

The ongoing crisis has meant that children are living in dilapidated and overcrowded conditions, Cormac O’Sullivan, south-west regional co-ordinator with the Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP), told The Echo.

“In Cork, SVP members are seeing families living in cramped conditions, such as six children and two adults sharing one room and a bathroom with several other families, with no safe space to call home,” Mr O’Sullivan said.

“Urgent action is needed to reduce the harm children are facing and protect their wellbeing and future opportunities.”

Mr O’Sullivan said SVP was calling on the government to establish an urgent national taskforce on family and lone-parent homelessness, with clear monthly targets, and with the authority to act across housing, social protection, childcare, health, and justice.

His comments come as children’s charity Barnardo’s has published a report showing that approximately one in five (18%) of the children it supports live in unsuitable accommodation that is directly damaging their childhoods.

Barnardo’s currently supports more than 35,600 children and families at 56 locations across Ireland.

Disturbing

The report outlines disturbing instances of children living in dirty, cold, damp, and unsafe environments while living in emergency accommodation.

Among the cases cited in the report are:

• A four-year-old and her mother were moved into a hotel room — provided by their local authority — that had stained sheets and faeces on the curtains;

• A mother with two children living in social housing that was constantly very damp and often covered in mould. She felt this was exacerbating one of her child’s asthma;

• A mother, stepfather, son, and 15-year-old daughter forced to live in one-bedroomed homeless accommodation for 18 months;

• A family with three children living in emergency accommodation/social housing property beside numerous couples who had significant adversities, including drug use and domestic violence issues. The children witnessed this on a frequent basis and were often woken up by it during the night;

• A family walking the streets as they had no safe place for their children to play near their emergency accommodation.

Barnardo’s CEO Suzanne Connolly said the impact upon children caused by living in emergency accommodation could not be overstated.

Uprooted

“Being uprooted from your home and communities and moved into often cramped and unsuitable emergency accommodation can be very traumatic,” she said.

“From our experience, without support, that trauma can affect children’s relationships with others, their behaviour and ability to engage in school, their confidence levels and feeling of wellbeing.

“Action needs to be taken now to mitigate some of the damage being done to childhoods and reduce the impact the trauma could have on future wellbeing and development, because childhood lasts a lifetime.”

The children’s charity is calling on the Government to take urgent steps to protect these children and mitigate the harm children may suffer from entering and living in emergency accommodation.

Among those measures, Barnardo’s says minimum acceptable standards of emergency accommodation for children must be improved.

It is also calling on Government to increase the rates of Housing Assistance Payments in Budget 2026 to realistically reflect increases in market rents.