Women with no home try to stay in prison

An increasing number of women prisoners do not want to leave Mountjoy Prison when they had served their sentences because they have nowhere to go, the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, said yesterday.

Women prisoners, he said, appeared to be particularly vulnerable to homelessness: "Sex offenders are another group who are presenting difficulties in this area, particularly given the fact that many of them have lost all family support and the reluctance of the community to accept them back into society," Mr O'Donoghue said. He was one of four Ministers speaking at the launch of the Government's Homeless Preventative Strategy yesterday.

The strategy highlighted prisoners leaving custody, patients leaving acute hospitals and psychiatric care and young people leaving care as the groups most vulnerable to homelessness. It hopes to prevent them from becoming homeless by providing a range of supports.

Mr O'Donoghue said transitional housing units had been approved for prisons in Cork and Limerick to prepare offenders for release: "Another important proposal is the establishment of a specialist unit by the Probation and Welfare Service to assist homeless offenders," he said.

The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, said he was most concerned with the homeless risk posed by people leaving psychiatric and acute hospital facilities and young people leaving care. He said the strategy would ensure all acute and psychiatric hospitals would have a formal written discharge policy which would be adhered to by all staff.

Acute hospitals would have a policy to ensure that homeless persons were identified on their admission and that arrangements were made to ensure that accommodation was provided after their discharge. Under the plan, health boards would have a written policy in place to ensure that aftercare was provided for young people leaving care.

Mr Martin said all necessary arrangements would be in place by the end of August.

Young people who left school early were one of the most vulnerable groups to homelessness, the Minister for Education, Mr Woods, warned. He said he would be shortly announcing "a substantial expansion" in the School Completion Programme, aimed at potential early school leavers.

The Minister for Housing and Urban Renewal, Mr Molloy, said a cross-department team would monitor the implementation of the strategy and report back to his Department.

He said the strategy must ensure that no one was released from any type of State care without having a suitable place to live.