Losing faith in leaders on homes crisis

PEOPLE voted with their feet yesterday in protest at the housing emergency – and politicians better sit up and take note if they want to keep their jobs.

There’s a revolution building over the level of homelessness in this country which is at an all time high and set to keep rising.

Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy is facing a motion of no confidence in the Dail as he tells us to keep faith and have patience.

Well there was precious little faith and no patience in evidence on Dublin’s O’connell Street yesterday as those affected had their say.

Why should those who lost their homes to greedy bankers and can’t afford huge rents show faith in a Government unwilling to tackle either?

Why should mothers whose newborns are not meeting their developmental milestones because they live in a cramped hotel room be expected to have patience?

Time is running out for this Government, and for every day this crisis goes on families the length and breadth of Ireland continue to suffer.

The homeless figure now stands just shy of 10,000 – with women accounting for 42% of it and one in three a child.

By 2021 the State will have spent €800million a year propping up the private rental sector supporting 83,000 tenancies, not to mention what it forks out for hotel rooms.

Have patience you say? Build the houses. Keep faith? Build the houses.

Bear with us? In your dreams.