Plight of Ireland’s homeless is a year round issue that we can’t forget

MANY issues made headlines this year but few are as important as Ireland’s ongoing and ever worsening housing and homelessness crisis. This Christmas is expected to be one of the worst ever for homelessness with the numbers of people living on the streets or in emergency accommodation reaching their highest level since records began.

By October the number of homeless people in Ireland reached an all time high of 10,514 following a year-on-year increase of almost 800 people.

Among these are 1,733 families and 3,826 children, many of whom will be praying that Santa can find them in cramped hotel rooms all over the country.

Leo Varadkar seems to think that won’t be a problem but his recent remarks – which led to deserved criticism – will likely have been cold comfort to the families eking out a miserable existence in hotels; in hostels; in tents and on the streets.

When it comes to issues like homelessness, images are powerful and one recent image summed up the scale and tragedy of the crisis.

In October a photo of a five-year-old little boy eating his dinner off the street in Dublin – not far from Leinster House – caused widespread outrage and fury.

The image, a shocking indictment of the state of modern Ireland, led to a surge in donations to homeless charities and prompted scores of people to join the volunteer groups trying their best to make the lives of the homeless just a little bit more bearable.

Christmas is a time of giving and traditionally every year the festive season sees a huge increase in donations to charities of all types.

This year, as one would expect, much money is being donated to homeless charities and groups trying to help those who find themselves without a roof over the heads this winter.

The annual Christmas outpouring of generosity is tremendous and it is to be welcomed but one wonders if it will last into the new year and the warmer months of spring and summer. Sadly, if past experience is anything to go by, it probably will not. It’s not that people become less generous of spirit but simply the fact that when the weather improves and Christmas is a distant memory many people find themselves distracted by other matters and the plight of the homeless becomes a less pressing issue.

It, however, does not become any less pressing a matter for the men, women and children without homes.

Across the country thousands of people will still be just as homeless, desperate and hungry on a sunny afternoon in July as they were on Christmas Day.

Homelessness is the most pressing social issue Ireland faces and we cannot allow it to be forgotten or to fade from the political agenda with the passing of Christmas and the winter.

Santa may well be able to find all those children in hotels on Tuesday night but we owe it to them to find them homes so they never have to face into another Dickensian Christmas again.