21 May 1998 Edition

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People flooding clinics as housing epidemic soars

by Michael Pierse

Dublin North Inner City SF Councillor Christy Burke spoke this week of a housing epidemic in Dublin which has caused the ``flooding'' of his advice centres. He said a ``monumental'' problem has been allowed to escalate owing to ``the failure of the present Government.''

Burke said he is dealing with a minimum of ten homeless people per week, together with a number of difficulties arising from the housing shortage in Dublin. This dilemma has led him to open a new advice centre in Dublin's Ormond Square, thanks to the local community. However, he was scathing in his criticism of the level of political inactivity in countering this problem: ``If all the public representatives worked in a coherent fashion they could certainly alleviate many of these difficulties,'' he said.

He was critical of various strategies enacted in the past and also what he termed the ``pure snobbery'' of certain politicians.

The selling off of public lands to the private sector since 1985 has caused a shortage of sites on which to build. In recent times this policy was reversed and it was decided to buy back houses to fill the vaccum. However, the begrudging snobbery of Fine Gael and some Fianna Fáil politicians ensured that any expenditure on individual houses was limited to £60,000, a figure is insufficient to purchase any reasonable accommodation in Dublin.

Burke also emphasised the massive problem that homelessness is posing to the urban climate. He described the conditions in hostels, through no fault of the staff employed there, as being ``substandard and dickensian.'' There is the situation where 14 year-olds are forced to go to adult hostels while their mothers are seperated into children's hostels with any other children they may have. They are also forced to leave the hostel at 9 am and cannot return until 8pm. ``The Celtic Tiger,'' he said ``bypasses all these working class areas.''

A good deal of houses, he said, are still without indoor toilets or bathroom facilities. The statistics are unsettling. 6,500 people on the housing list, 8,000 on the transfer list, 2,500 on the senior citizens list and a 12 month delay on the homeless list.

Housing staff are finding th e situation increasingly distressing. They are unable to cope with the frustration expressed by many impoverished people and often end up the targets of agression.

The City Manager John Fitzgerald has pledged to Councillor Burke that a full report on the situation will be forwarded to City Council, hopefully in June. Meanwhile, he continues to be contactable at City Hall.

An Phoblacht
44 Parnell Sq.
Dublin 1
Ireland