Without a stable roof over your head, human flourishing falls apart. Ireland does not stand alone in the housing crisis. Across Europe lack of and cost of housing has risen sharply in recent years. Rents have exploded, neighbourhoods have been upwardly reclassified in terms of occupancy and public spaces privatised. The result is more and more people facing homelessness.
Leo Varadkar attended a recent meeting of political leaders at the British-Irish Council summit on Jersey. He was commenting after issues related to housing were discussed. Unfortunately the north of Ireland was not represented at a political level due to the impasse at Stormont. Shame on the DUP.
We have come dangerously close to accepting the homelessness situation as a problem that we just can’t solve. The housing crisis in Ireland has worsened since the economic crash of 2008. Despite years of saying that housing is a priority, the problem is getting worse. Despite near full employment, homelessness is at an all-time high. The housing crisis is easy to explain: it is a result of allowing Irish property to be placed in the hands of companies seeking to maximise profit rather than to provide homes. Often this simple truth is lost because of an assumption that there is no alternative to the free market. Most other countries have policies in place to moderate the harmful consequences of a completely free market in property but Ireland provides a particularly dramatic case of what happens when you let vulture funds drive the agenda. The housing crisis has become a monster.
In the late 1800s and well into the 1900s people in many parts of Europe decided to leave their homes and emigrate, due to land and job shortages, rising taxes, famine, persecution and evictions, to the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These countries were then perceived as lands of economic opportunity. In contrast to those statistics today, Europe has become an economic and safe haven for those escaping from war-torn countries and those seeking new challenges.
In July 2023 the Housing Europe Observatory published its latest research report – Delivery on Housing in Ireland. How does Ireland compare with our European neighbours when it comes to our performance in housing and what can we learn from Europe about how to better meet housing needs in Ireland.
There is expectant hope rather than excruciating anguish.
Housing is stability. Housing is dignity. Housing is an absolutely necessary, critical infrastructure.
JAMES G BARRY
Dublin 6
Hysterical reaction to PSNI own goal
So, Archbishop Eamon Martin has put his spoke in and advised RUC/PSNI personnel to continue as of before.
The RUC/PSNI is an armed force which seeks to actively continue a political agenda – to maintain Northern Ireland as part of the UK. Their whole raison d’etre is political – it is not a community-based, normal police force like elsewhere.
Those who oppose this are called dissidents by the media and are classified as ‘terrorists’, hence the hysterical reaction when some of their computer files went missing. Republicans would view this as an own goal on behalf of the PSNI.
SEAN O’NEILL
Belfast BT15
The dogs in the street know it
Brian Feeney – ‘With their majority gone, what is the point of unionism’ (August 16) – needs to almost only ask the dogs in the street to find the answer to his question and it will be ‘to keep Sinn Féin from taking its rightful place, as the largest party, from forming a government and, inter alia, its leader taking her place as First Minister’. The unionists have made up excuses and the dogs in the street know it.
PETER PALLAS
Bantry, Co Cork
Partitionist views
If a Listowel person expressed the partitionist view attributed to him or her, it warrants Tom Collins’s criticism (August 18). However, I hasten to point out that that view is far from representative of the views of those who reside in Listowel and its vicinity.
J ANTHONY GAUGHAN
Blackrock, Co Dublin
