Family homelessness is now a “national emergency” with a record number of children in temporary or emergency accommodation in the past year, according to children’s rights campaigners. Overall, the 2018 report gives the Government an overall C- grade in relation to progress on its commitments to children. Progress on improving services for LGBT young people also scored highly (a B-), thanks largely to the development of an LGBT youth strategy that will encompass education, youth services, mental health and other issues. However, progress on improving mental health services for young people was rated poorly (D+) due to more than 6,800 children on waiting lists for vital community mental health supports. If you go back 10 years to when we first started publishing our annual report cards, child homelessness happened rarely; now, in the aftermath of the crash, it is a national emergency.

Source: The Irish Times February 13, 2018 12:11 UTC