THE HOMELESS? I’M ON HOLIDAY

Minister will not return early from Camino trip over scandal of children in Garda stations

Minister Eoghan Murphy is refusing to interrupt his holiday abroad to deal with a homelessness crisis laid bare this week by photos of young children sleeping in a Garda station.

Mr Murphy is abroad on an extended break that has featured a walk on Spain’s Camino de Santiago but he told the Irish Mail on Sunday that he has no intention of returning to face criticism over the Government’s homelessness policy.

He insisted he is in constant communication with his department.

This weekend he told the MoS from his holiday: ‘There’s never a day in the job when you’re not executing

your functions and responsibilities as a minister.’

He would not, however, disclose the date of his proposed return, but a spokesman later said that he may return in the coming week.

Margaret Cash and six of her seven children – Johnny, 11, Tommy, 10, Miley, seven, Jim, four, Rocky, two, and Andy, one – were forced to sleep in Tallaght Garda Station on metal chairs on Wednesday night as they are homeless. Ms Cash’s nine-year-old daughter had been in hospital earlier that week and stayed with family friends.

On Friday evening, the MoS contacted Mr Murphy on his holiday abroad.

He confirmed that he had spent a portion of his holiday walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain. The Camino is a pilgrimage route to the shrine of the Apostle St James the Great in the Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.

Colleagues in Fine Gael were angry that Ministers Simon Harris and Heather Humphreys were subjected to heated questioning about the plight of Ms Cash and her family. Fine Gael colleagues told the MoS that they believed Mr Murphy should return to deal with the matter.

However, Mr Murphy said claims that he was away for a month, made by Fine Gael colleagues in a series of briefings against him, were ‘nonsense’.

‘Have you ever known of any politician to

‘I’m away – but I’m in daily contact’

take a month off? And a minister?’ asked Mr Murphy. ‘As you well know, we are never really off. Every day there is something, the vast majority of which doesn’t make the news cycle.

‘I’m away but I’m in daily contact with the Department [of Housing, Planning and Local Government] on a range of issues. There’s never a day in the job when you’re not executing your functions and responsibilities as a minister,’ he added.

Subsequently, yesterday, a spokesman for Mr Murphy said that he might return to Ireland next week.

‘He is out of the country, he is in constant contact, we’re on the phone with him 20 times a day,’ said a spokesman. ‘He is on the phone to the Dublin Region Homeless Executive [DRHE], he’s on the phone to the [department] secretary-general.’

The spokesman said that Mr Murphy is not disclosing where exactly he is. He also denied claims that he would be away for a month.

‘I think he is back next week,’ he said. ‘He feels that he doesn’t want to give out details of where he is. Obviously, the Camino was part of his travel.’

The department said that the minister is monitoring the matter from abroad.

‘The issue here is that a family ended up in a Garda station,’ said a spokesman. ‘What the minister did was immediately get in touch with the DRHE and asked them to review the systems in place for when somebody presents late at night.

‘The DRHE has spoken to Focus and other organisations and I believe that there has been some contact between the DRHE and the fact that the DRHE will never leave a family in a Garda station.

‘The DRHE is doing some work and will present it to us next week.’

A Fine Gael supporter of Mr Murphy’s last night said: ‘I don’t think any of this personal stuff is newsworthy.’

But Mr Murphy did discuss his plans to walk the Camino with a gossip columnist before going on his holidays. An article appeared on July 30. This trip is Mr Murphy’s second time walking the Camino.

He told The Sunday Independent in July: ‘Walking the Camino was amazing. This time, I am going to walk and see how far I get before I have to come back to the office.’ He said that he would try to walk 30km per day and would sleep in hostels, where pilgrims traditionally seek shelter.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is also abroad and a spokesman for Simon Coveney said the Tánaiste was away with his family. Neither will be in a position to attend the 20th anniversary of the Omagh bomb.

However Mr Murphy’s Fine Gael colleagues were quietly excoriating about his decision to take a long break. There are private admissions within Fine Gael said that the Government was wrong to try to justify the circumstances that led to Ms Cash’s children having to sleep in a Garda station.

‘The children are sleeping on metal chairs,’ said a senior colleague. ‘It doesn’t matter what the circumstances are, you cannot defend

that. What Murphy doesn’t have is empathy. I get the feeling it’s going to run and run, this one. Obviously, something broke down and at the very least the minister needs to investigate what happened here.’ Another colleague was scathing of Mr Murphy’s performance at the Department of Housing, saying: ‘Does it ever look like it might ever end and does anyone seriously think that Murphy has what it takes to sort it out?’