We’ve got a lot of third world problems here at the moment... health & housing are human rights
Pundit on ‘terrible situation’ of people living on streets across Ireland
EAMON Dunphy has blasted the Government over the housing crisis and a catalogue of “third world problems” in Ireland.
The outspoken broadcaster and soccer pundit said it was unacceptable to have 13,179 people – 3,991 of them children – registered as homeless.
He told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “This is a terrible situation and it is right there in front of our eyes.
“People walking over people on the street... We’ve got a lot of third world problems here at the moment.
“Health and housing, which should be human rights, the right to have somewhere to live with your children and the right to have access to healthcare, they are human rights. The solution is a more equal society, but I’m afraid we don’t live in a fair society.
“Poverty comes in many forms, you can have money and still be very poor in other ways.
“The poverty and the housing situation now and access to health, which poor people don’t have, it’s a killer.
“If you are young now and in a decent job, it’s hard to buy a house.
“You could be married, living with somebody, and [having to live] with your parents.”
Eamon, 78, documented his own impoverished upbringing on Dublin’s northside in his autobiography describing how he and his brother slept on the floor until he was age 15.
He said: “It was a hard life, we were poor. My father was a builder’s labourer, my mother did her best. We lived in one room, in a bad situation.
“I left school at 13, went on a messenger boy’s bike.
“Football was the thing that saved me. If it wasn’t for football I could have ended up doing bad things.”
But Eamon, who was scouted by Manchester United as a teenager, added: “I’ve been very lucky in my life and I’m grateful for all the things I have in my life. I’m grateful to my mother and father for being such wonderful parents.
“The older you are the more you think back to what they didn’t have, never had a holiday, never had a car you know, didn’t have television, desperate stuff. You won’t hear me whinging about my upbringing.
“I had lots of love and affection and you can’t buy that.
“But I do understand. I have an empathy for the way people are having to live now.”
Podcaster Eamon spent four decades as a sports pundit on RTE from 1978 to 2018 but insisted he no longer misses it because pundits now are “vanilla”.
He said: “That was a long time, but I don’t really miss it, I’m happy enough to watch the matches at home.
“I wouldn’t do it with the people who are doing it now, the pundits now are vanilla.” Asked if he got a kick out of being controversial and playing Devil’s Advocate, he replied: “No, I meant it all.
“If you wonder why people aren’t saying things or vanilla now, they don’t want to get into trouble.
“I was never afraid to get into trouble, f**k it, I believe in free speech. You don’t go seeking controversy.
“When Jack Charlton was manager of Ireland and I was critical, Ireland were going to Italia 90, that was difficult but I stuck to my guns.
“People in the end came around to thinking I might be a f ***** g idiot, but I wasn’t a fake.
“I meant what I was saying, I wasn’t just saying it to be controversial.”
It was a hard life, we were poor. I left school at 13 EAMON DUNPHY ON HIS CHILDHOOD IN DUBLIN