MICHAEL D: WHY COUNCILS MUST BUILD HOUSES

Extraordinary intervention in the homeless crisis by President Higgins

PRESIDENT Michael D Higgins has called on the State to become more directly involved in combating the social housing and homelessness crisis in Ireland.

Speaking exclusively to the Irish Mail on Sunday in a wide-ranging interview, President Higgins

said: ‘The State centrally and the State locally has to come back into the picture in a very strong way as a responsible housing manager.’

He made his comments in response to questions about Apollo House in Dublin city centre, where the group Home Sweet Home has vowed to continue its campaign against homelessness, and to take it nationwide. While some of the original Apollo House residents have moved to longerterm accommodation, it is still receiving referrals daily from the city’s soup kitchens.

The homelessness crisis has reached record proportions, with just under 7,000 adults and children now in emergency accommodation, according to the latest figures from the Environment Department.

President Higgins said beds provided for homeless people give them a secure night, but don’t allow them access to anywhere secure to spend the day. He added that ‘in the immediate sense... we have to turn every available bed into a secure bed, and you have to take what people are now calling “the wrap-around services” and must realise that the need is not only for those spending a night safe from the weather, it’s actually for a secure day, I think.’

He also referred to Michael Collins talking about ‘walking down the streets of Dublin when it was free’ but added: ‘The point about it is, walking around a Dublin that is being prepared for dereliction so that vulture funds can lean on the planning system is something we have to have a long think about.’

President Higgins spoke out just two months after Housing Minister Simon Coveney announced a Rebuilding Ireland action plan, which has set a target of providing 47,000 social housing homes by 2021, while also making the best use of existing houses and improving conditions for those living in the rented sector.

President Higgins also said Ireland needs to speak up about Europe’s future.

‘As we go forward in the European Union, Ireland should be the country that is speaking about the possibilities of the EU and making the case for why we are not going to run off the field in the face of the politics of fear, and if the politics of fear turn into the politics of hate, then we will confront it,’ he said.

‘One of the areas I have been spending a lot of time studying has been: what is the future of Europe. And really I’m looking at it in a wider sense.

‘There is an immediate challenge with Brexit but there is a bigger issue that we must not neglect and that is: what is the future of the European Union itself, in terms of its aspirations and idealism. You can’t ignore the changes that are taking place in Poland, Hungary, Italy and France. The issue in Europe – and now I’m trying to put it very simply – is that all of the energies, in the short term, should go into restoring legitimacy in the possibilities of Europe.’

He also offered tongue-incheek advice to Donald Trump, saying: ‘I say, think a little longer than a tweet.’

But he added: ‘Whoever people choose as their head of state, when they visit here they are treated with the utmost courtesy, no more than, in fact, when heads of state dine and all the rest of it. There is a time for sympathy and there is a time for analysis.’

‘Turn every available bed into a secure bed’