Talk and spin will not end homeless crisis

EILEEN Gleeson, the head of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, has found herself excoriated for having the temerity to argue that the validity of ad hoc groups giving food to the homeless is not the ultimate answer to the problem. Some of Ms Gleeson’s language was insensitive. Yet her core message that the solution to homelessness can not be found on the doorstep of a shelter, or a soup kitchen, is impossible to argue with.

Both Peter McVerry and Brother Kevin have heroically attempted to help those who have fallen through the wide cracks in our society. Both agree that we have a homeless emergency, despite the claim by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar that other countries have a worse problem. As if that was really where we wanted to set the bar, by comparing ourselves with the worst.

The crassness of Mr Varadkar’s remark was actually surpassed by Junior Housing Minister Damien English, who claimed that media coverage of the homeless was “damaging to Ireland’s reputation” internationally.

And then came the news that his boss, Eoghan Murphy, had been out and about on a soup run in Dublin city centre. No doubt his presence will have been extraordinarily consoling to the country’s 8,374 people currently homeless.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the actual volunteer services continue to do their unsung, extraordinary work.

And the tragedy of it is, as Ms Gleeson points out, that this is not necessarily going to secure the outcome so desperately needed; and that is to get people out of homelessness for good.

This must be the job of Government. It requires strategy and action, vision and resolve.

And for all the talk, photo opportunities and soft-soap, the shameful failure to provide the homes so urgently required goes on.