Villagers: Letters to the Editor 2006-02-09
Greystones Harbour
Public needs to be involved in planning decisions
The controversy over the proposed large-scale development of Greystones Harbour is really a conflict of visions for the town's attractive but dilapidated Victorian harbour and grey stony beach. Residents of the town are split over whether the ultra-modern apartment complex, related commercial development, large marina and artificial beach will represent a positive transformation of what is currently a valued, and largely unspoilt, public amenity.
Many residents who have lived in Greystones for any period of time, or who have used its marvellous beach, have formed a deep attachment to this stretch of coastline, and they don't wish to see it significantly altered in any way. Others feel frustrated with the run-down appearance of the harbour and want to see the provision of modern facilities for the area, even if these must be funded by the development of a significant number of apartments. There is nothing unusual about this. Competing public opinions on how our coastline, and our country, could develop should inform our planning process.
This is why public consultation processes are so important. Unfortunately, any real public consultation that occurred with regard to the proposed development of Greystones Harbour took place just prior to the submission of planning documents to An Bord Pleanála by Wicklow County Council and the private consortium Sispar. In fact, one could argue that this amounted to a "presentation" of the proposed plan, rather than any real "consultation" on how the people of Greystones would wish to see the harbour area develop into the future. Many residents feel understandably aggrieved.
The Green Party believes that when local authorities propose the significant development of sensitive areas of public amenity, full public involvement in the earliest stages of planning should occur. For example, in the case of the development of Greystones Harbour, there is no good reason why a town-wide plebiscite could not have occurred at a certain stage of the planning process: local residents could have given their verdict on whether they wished to see the harbour developed in the manner that has been proposed.
Unfortunately, no attempt has been made by Wicklow County Council to employ an appropriate form of participatory democracy, such as a public plebiscite, in order to give the people of Greystones a say in how their harbour area is to be developed. Rather, the residents of the town have been presented with what is effectively a fait accompli in terms of a plan for its development. In the event that An Bord Pleanála gives the green light to the plan, the residents of Greystones will have to live with the loss of the current harbour and the proposed large-scale and extremely modern development, whether or not they support it.
We need to revisit our planning processes and to build meaningful public participation into any large-scale development plans for public amenity areas. This is essential if we want to avoid such projects becoming captured and controlled by narrow development interests.
Cllr Deirdre de Burca
Wicklow County Councillor, Green Party, Bray
Membership of the IMC
Independent monitoring?
It seems like the latest report from the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) will further delay the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, as voted for by the Irish people. Surely some critical analysis should be applied to a body with such huge powers. The make-up of the IMC suggests that it may not be quite as "independent" as the name implies.
Commander John Grieve was head of Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorism Branch in 1996 when it killed Diarmuid O'Neill, who was unarmed and trying to surrender – as confirmed by the surveillance tape of the incident played on BBC TV. Amnesty International condemned the killing, and the dissemination of false information that there was an exchange of gunfire and explosives found on the premises.
Lord Alderdice is former leader of the Alliance Party and strong political opponent of Sinn Féin.
Dick Kerr is former deputy director of the CIA, which has been involved in many dubious operations around the world. Its reports that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction were subsequently proved false but only after many thousands had been killed in the Iraq war.
Joe Brosnan was in charge of the Garda division of the Department of Justice. As well as failing to properly investigate the worst incident of the Troubles – the Dublin-Monaghan bombings – Garda Special Branch continued to tell the family of Seamus Ludlow that he had been killed by the IRA when they knew he had been shot by a loyalist gang with British Intelligence connections.
The IMC is supposed to examine policing and security, as well as reporting on Sinn Féin and the IRA. Yet none of its reports has mentioned the reported ongoing threats to the life of former RUC detective, Jonty Brown. Brown recently told the BBC that he was being threatened by former RUC Special Branch members, who are now in senior positions in the PSNI, because he tried to expose collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the police.
Independent monitoring? I don't think so!
Sean Marlow
Dublin 11
Criminalising magic mushrooms
Mushrooms only dangerous if taken recklessly
Magic mushrooms are dangerous and need to be respected. So is alcohol. So is the ocean if you're a recreational swimmer or boater. So is the mountain if you're a recreational hiker or rock climber. So are the roads if you're a recreational cyclist or walker. All of these activities are dangerous and all of these activities are much more dangerous if you engage in them recklessly. If you go boating without life jackets or on a poorly maintained vessel, you're taking a big risk; if you cycle at night with no lights or reflective clothing, you're taking a big risk; if you go hiking with poor equipment in poor conditions you're taking a big risk... And if you take magic mushrooms together with alcohol or other drugs in the wrong environment, you're taking a big risk.
The Government doesn't ban swimming or hiking or cycling – they educate the people about proper safety. This may not work for everybody, since there are still accidents, but it does cut down a lot on the number of people who are killed or seriously injured. They don't ban these activities – even though they are dangerous – because they have some benefits that balance against the risk.
Equally, people who take mushrooms and other drugs do so because they too have benefits that balance against the risk. They can make people feel good, they can have spiritual effects, they can expand the mind and inspire great creativity and they can be very interesting from a purely philosophical point of view.
People know that there are risks, but the risks are relatively small and are smaller still if the user is educated and proper precautions are taken.
David Rynne
Ennis, Co Clare
Not practicing what he preaches
Disappointed in Hugo Chavez
I find some of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's comments, as reported in Rory Hearne's Village article (2-8 February), diffiult to swallow. In his speech, Chavez is reported as describing the US as being "an immoral empire" which "tortures people". He also makes special mention of Guantánamo detention camp. The US, however, are not the only people involved in human rights abuses on the island of Cuba.
The Cuban authorities maintain "article 91" and "Law 88" (Law for the Protection of the National Independence and Economy of Cuba), and under this directive, they retain the right to detain individuals for exercising their free speech. The authority remains the only legitimate political organisation in Cuba, and those that attempt to voice opposition often feel the wrath of the regime. There have also been reports of ill-treatment of prisoners who have been detained under these powers.
Like many, I was hugely hopeful for South America when Chavez rose to power in Venezuela. However, so long as he continues to align himself with the repressive regime of Castro, I find some of his criticisms of the rest of the world difficult to take. I believe he would be better served concentrating on domestic issues and trying to convert the world to his ideology by the example of a prospering Venezuela.
Matthew Sadlier
North Circular Road, Limerick
More 'Cuba: 71 prisoners of conscience continue to be imprisoned for expressing their ideas' is available at www.amnesty.org
Reaction to John Waters
Fear of secularisation
The fear of secularisation evident in every line of John Waters' article (Village, 19-25 January) is as interesting as it is offensive. I would like to tackle the core of Waters' argument, his premise that, "there is no known secular morality which, being tried and tested, could be deemed fit to take over when the secularists have buried religion. The very essence of our common understanding of right and wrong is inextricably bound up with Christianity, and any withdrawal from that ethos would dismantle the only moral system we hold in common."
There are two assumptions on which this argument is based. Firstly, the assumption that Catholic morality is in fact "moral"; and secondly, that there is no other moral system in existence among human society. I take issue with both of these assumptions.
Firstly, Catholicism as a system of morals. Historically this is an institution which, most notoriously during the Crusades, saw no moral conflict in abandoning the notion of "thou shalt not kill" in the interests of imperial conquest. More recently it is an institution that sent mothers to "Magdalene Laundries" for their "sin" of having a child out of wedlock and which, as a measure of policy, hid child sex abuse to protect its own image.
Institutionally this is a church whose highest representative asserts that people who love someone of the same sex are, "intrinsically disordered"; that gay marriage is the "ideology of evil"; and that people who are homosexual should not be allowed to work with children. It is a body whose institutions are deeply patriarchal and exclude women from any form of representation or decision-making. This is a church which does not see a moral conflict in its condemnation of contraception in an age where AIDS is killing approximately 8,000 people a day.
I am an atheist and a proud proponent of secularisation. I believe that innocent people should not be murdered in the interests of power or imperialism. I believe that no dogma is worth putting people's lives at risk, nor is it worth the destruction of lives. I believe that it is our duty to always speak out against injustice and against such abominations as child abuse. I believe in respect for every individual, and especially in respect for the love that every individual feels. I believe in equality. I believe that anyone who thinks there is a god is as entitled to his or her belief as I am to mine. The actions of the Catholic Church fly in the face of my morality.
My morality is not based on fear of the fires of hell. It is based on the notion of respect and the ideals of liberalism. As scientists testify, basic morality – such as not killing people and helping one another – is a set of rules that is genetically programmed into us in order to allow for the functioning of society. This, not Christianity, is the "only moral system we hold in common". The rest is produced by socialisation. To assert that if we lose religion we lose morality is nothing short of ridiculous. Catholic morality is but one morality and in my opinion leaves much to be desired. If we can teach a child to hate then we can teach her to love; if we can teach a child to disrespect then we can teach him to respect. It is our choice. Fear need not stand in the way of change nor in the way of progress.
Louise Caffrey
Delgany, Co Wicklow
A sophist for a sapphist
If John Waters is to be provided space under your editorship for his execrable, misogynist whataboutery, may I ask where the balancing voice is to come from? Where, for instance, has Marie Mulholland's column disappeared to? Swapping a sapphist for a sophist? Surely some mistake, Mr Browne?
Eleanor Methven
Kilmainham, Dublin 8
No sport for hares
Caveman and coursing
The caveman was much in evidence at the national finals of hare coursing in Clonmel, judging from the picture of men in grotesque animal skin head-gear published this week in a national newspaper. This appeared alongside a disturbing image of two greyhounds – one owned by well-known soccer man Niall Quinn – in the process of mauling an unfortunate hare that had been pinned down.
The pictures were accompanied by an upbeat account of this barbaric, outdated activity. We were told that the finals were a "showpiece event" in "brilliant sunshine" which generate "€16 million to the local economy" and that Arts, Sports and Tourism Minister John O'Donoghue is a fan and would be attending at some stage.
It was stated that there would be 180 hares used, and that they would be returned to the wild. But what of the unfortunate hare pinned down by Niall Quinn's greyhound? What was its fate?
Prior to the introduction of muzzling, Gerry Desmond of the Irish Coursing Club acknowledged the cruelty inflicted on hares by muzzled dogs. "If you get a weak hare, he might be tossed around by muzzled dogs and would be battered," he stated in the Irish Greyhound Review in 1987, adding in 1991 on RTÉ's Morning Ireland that "we felt it led to suffering by the hares afterwards. When hares get injured, they find it very difficult to recuperate from any form of injury." Desmond's predictions were to prove accurate, even though he now tries to assert that the kill has "effectively" been taken out of the blood sport.
Since the introduction of muzzling, not a coursing season goes by without hares being injured and dying from maulings, according to reports obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Abuses noted include the taking of pregnant hares from the wild, which results in leverets being born in coursing enclosures; hares becoming sick while in captivity; 40 hares dying from stress-related diseases following a coursing meeting in Wexford; and a National Parks ranger recording that 20 hares were "poor runners" and "appeared to be suffering from malnutrition" at a coursing meeting in Sligo in 2004.
There were also instances of severely injured hares being released back into the wild, one with an eye injury and the other with a severely injured back leg following a coursing meeting in Clare. The ranger noted that "its survival chances were minimal". Then there was the incident of dead and dying hares found by a ranger in wooden boxes, having been transported for over four and a half hours from Limerick to Leitrim after a coursing event.
These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg and there is much more cruelty lurking behind the scenes of coursing. No amount of licensing and regulation will address what is an intrinsically cruel practice. Coursing has no place in a civilised and modern country, and the only answer is for Environment Minister Dick Roche to follow the example of Britain and ban this horror once and for all.
Aideen Yourell
Irish Council against Blood Sports
Reporting Shell profits
Royal Dutch Shell and Rossport
I was very surprised at the lack of media coverage given to the 2005 record-breaking profits of Royal Dutch Shell. For example, the Irish Times, the "paper of record", merely made a passing three-line reference to the matter in the middle of an article in the business section (3 February).
I think it would have been extremely relevant, in view of the Corrib gas pipeline controversy, to report and indeed to highlight that the Royal Dutch Shell profits for 2005 were £13.12 billion sterling (up a third on 2004); that is, almost £36 million sterling per day or £1.5 million sterling per hour.
These huge sums of money would have made it child's play for Shell to build a terminal at sea, as the Rossport Five campaigners want, instead of trying to impose an unwanted pipeline on the people of Rossport – a pipeline which is terrifying in its potential for disaster. Surely it is time for conscientious Shell shareholders to make known to the oil company their support for the Rossport Five.
SEÁN Ó RIAIN
Blackrock, Co Dublin
Was 1916 a crime?
Admiring the IRB
Pierce Martin never follows through on an argument. He broke off his engagement with me regarding T M Kettle, but now, over a month later (Village, 19 January), he skips onto another matter.
Never mind. This method will eventually get all the red herrings of the revisionist collective onto the table. He now seeks the support of the IRB in his campaign against the 1916 Rising, claiming that in its Constitution of 1873, "the IRB/Fenians prohibited the use of force without a mandate. The rebels of 1916 were in fact violating their own constitution."
The IRB, like all sensible people, wanted their political aims achieved in the most peaceful way possible. However, being sensible people, they were also well aware that political aims are not usually achieved by spontaneous activity – they had to be worked. That was why the same Constitution of 1873 confirmed the IRB structure of a 'Supreme Council of the IRB and Government of the Irish Republic'. This government was entitled to enact the laws of the Irish Republic (for example, there was to be no state religion), levy taxes, negotiate loans and make war or peace. The President of the organisation was declared to be 'in fact as by right the President of the Irish Republic' and he was responsible for the military preparations to effect any mandates – and he always lived up to his responsibilities. The Constitution was published and addressed to the Irish Republican Army.
Does Pierce Martin really accept this Constitution or is there a little cherry-picking on his part? This confirmation of the structure was the real achievement of the 1873 Conference and served the IRB very effectively, almost unchanged, until 1916 and beyond. This structure and their belief in it was what made the IRB what it was and sustained it through thick and thin. All else was tactics.
It helped achieve a mandate for independence in 1918 as envisaged in its Constitution over 40 years earlier. How come Pierce – who appears to laud this constitutional aim of theirs in 1873 – cannot accept the reality of it when it actually happened, and why has he done all he can to dismiss, disparage and explain it away in this debate? If he looks to the IRB for support he should also look to their admirable consistency and copy them in that regard.
He repeats the claim that "Home Rule was enacted on 18 September 1914 (implementation delayed until after the war); a constitutional political consensus existed." However, this consensus was a very temporary illusion and the reality that destroyed it was spelt out by someone who should know – Asquith the Prime Minister – in the House of Commons on 15 September 1914 when proposing to put the Home Rule Bill on the Statute Book. He explained that: "The Home Rule Bill will not, and cannot, come into operation until Parliament has had the fullest opportunity, by an Amending Bill, of altering, modifying, or qualifying its provisions in such a way as to secure the general consent both of Ireland and of the United Kingdom."
So, after nearly three decades of debate and three Home Rule Bills, and even with Home Rule formally on the Statute Book, it was still not going to come into force. The further amending, altering, modifying and qualifying, as the government saw fit, meant it was never intended to come into force, and it never did. The plain fact was that the government had conceded to the Unionists' extraparliamentary threat, (which Asquith explicitly acknowledged in the same speech) and Home Rule was dead and buried. In fact, it was stillborn.
Everyone knew how it was killed and the clear-sighted nationalists (led by the IRB) drew the obvious conclusion of how they might also change government policy, and copied the means used by the Unionists in forming the Irish Volunteers. And they were proved to be as successful as the Unionists had been and the IRB, as they envisaged in 1873, came into their inheritance.
I do hope that Pierce continues to develop his apparent admiration for the IRB because then we will have something to agree on.
Jack Lane
Millstreet, Co Cork
Thank God for 1916
I'm not sure which of Pierce Martin's "beliefs" ranks as the most bizzare; the one which states that the British suppressed Dáil Éireann because of electoral percentages as opposed to imperial and colonial policy, or the one which believes that if enough such letters are written to Village, your chances of making the New Year Honours list are somehow increased. There's no more pathetic spectacle than an Irish person craving a British bauble. Thank God for 1916.
Colm Mac Aonghusa
Lucan, Co Dublin
Commemorating 1916
Refuting Lord Laird
I would like to challenge the idea, most recently expressed by Lord Laird of the British House of Lords in an Irish newspaper, that the 1966 commemoration of 1916 was instrumental in causing the eruption of political violence in the North.
As a schoolboy at that time, my memory of the event is of a valuable educational experience that made me feel good about the society into which I had been born. Throughout my time in school, I never heard a word of prejudice against England or Protestantism, and the same was true for my experience of the 1966 anniversary.
I remember picking up echoes of a fascinating debate on how our admiration for the high ideals of the 1916 leaders should be channelled into social improvement. If we are to look for after-effects of the commemoration, I would see them in a renewed commitment to the ideals expressed in the 1916 Proclamation. I suspect that much of the passion for social reform that marked Irish public debate right through the 1970s stemmed from 1966.
If I must find fault with the commemoration, it would be with the practice of making plaster saints of the 1916 leaders. Pearse, Connolly and the rest are far more interesting when seen as politically-motivated individuals acting in a specific set of circumstances than as the mystical figures of later propaganda.
Regarding the outbreak of violence in the North, the event that made inevitable the formation of some form of defence force for Northern Catholic communities was the invasion of the Falls in 1969 by loyalist mobs assisted by members of the security forces. All other possible causes of political violence pale into insignificance compared to the realisation by Northern Catholics that they were defenceless against loyalist attack.
Lord Laird is not the first British commentator to have difficulty in understanding that that this part of Ireland is actually independent of the United Kingdom. He is clearly perplexed by our President's support for the event that led to the formation of the State. I suggest that if his Lordship is resolved to take action against commemorations that lead to unnecessary violence, he should begin by opposing the carnival of militarism that is Remembrance Sunday in Britain.
David Alvey
Dalkey, Co Dublin
Mary McAleese and 1916
How apparently fickle is the stuff from which universal compassion and liberty are made, that such concepts can turn to dust in the mouth of even the most exalted in our society. President Mary McAleese on 27 January at UCC presented a cold rationale of one of the most notorious acts of treachery in history: the 1916 insurrection.
Extolling the cruel insanity of her "heroes", she restated their murderous answer to a world gone mad with the fever of war; and that answer, to use the metaphor of the row of burning houses, was to set another house ablaze.
However, as many historians have stated – Paseta, Newsinger – it was not the war or an alleged breakdown in domocracy in Ireland that caused the insurrection; the objective of a "rising", had its roots in the emergence of Fenianism in the 1850s, and even as early as the late 1840s.
There was no chaos in Ireland before 24 April 1916, and her snide and counterfactual remark about the country being run from the "Kildare Street Club", is taken right out of DP Moran and his irrational "narrow" and "sectarian" definition of Irishness, which, in her heart and mind, the President would appear to share, despite her denials.
One might well ask how, as a staunch Roman Catholic, President McAleese can justify the "Rising", considering the fact that the event violated the principles of the "just war" theory, as expounded by St Augustine, among others. This also raises questions regarding the Roman Catholic church and 1916, an issue for another day perhaps.
It is obvious from President McAleese's echoing of the bigotry of a loathsome Irish Irelander like Moran, that her understanding of Irish political history before the "revolution" is as myopic as that of Martin Mansergh.
Not one sentence in her ethno-neo-romantic, nationalist, bloodstained eulogy touched upon the victims of 1916. The RIC men murdered in cold blood; patriotic Irishmen, simply doing their duty in shepherding civilians to safety. She avoided inconvenient facts such as the casualties suffered by the Irish regiments who put down the Rising: an example of this were the nine Royal Dubliners killed as they battled terrorists – one of the first British officers to meet his death in their line of fire was a strong Irish nationalist.
One might have expected from this semi-iconic, coroneted head of state – our home-grown fountain of compassion – at least a passing reference to the 300 innocent civilians who died in the insurrection. Instead she allowed her feverish, republican, anglophobic, tribalist mind to take flights of fancy into the realms of lyrical prose. "Their deaths rise above the clammer – their voices insistent still," what is that all about?
There was no eulogy in her address for the shrouded remains of the scores of children caught in the crossfire of Clarke's and Pearse's killing lust; no tender words for the memory of the thousands wounded, bereaved, and made homeless as a proto-fascist, nationalist elite strove for power, praying to God that the Germam Imperial army might arrive to save their little adventure. And to add insult to injury, she proclaims that they were doing this in the name of democracy, and the sovereign right of a a nation! A nation they never bothered to consult! Had they done so, of course they would have been told where to go, and it would not have been to the GPO.
President McAleese, like Martin Mansergh and most of our political nationalist elite, follow the historical philosophy of Carlyle, and JA Froude. Whether they are aware of it or not, they see history as drama, not as a subject worthy of scientific inquiry. They are only interested in preserving a pristine nationalist orthodoxy. The facts annoy them because they get in the way of their panegyric of a proto-fascist violent separatist coup d'état, in which up to 10,000 people were either killed or wounded by 1923; add to that the so-called "Troubles" in our own lifetime (a continuation of 1916 ) and one might have some idea of what McAleese is implicitly glorifying.
Pierce Martin
Celbridge, Co Kildare
Profiling Aisling Reidy
Business as usual at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties
I welcome the profile of Aisling Reidy in the last issue of Village (2-8 February) which was an accurate depiction of her valuable contribution specifically to the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) over the past four years and generally to the promotion of human rights in Irish society.
However, I would like to clarify any confusion which may have been created about the future of the ICCL. The ICCL has certainly lost a valuable executive director with Aisling's move to New York but the ICCL is and has always been bigger than one individual.
Over the past 30 years, talented and committed individuals have been involved with the organisation as board members, directors, staff and supporters. The ICCL continues to attract individuals with talent and passion. We have seen this recently with the high calibre of candidates who have applied for the post of executive director.
The recent fire at our premises was certainly a shock, and inconvenient, but within days, ICCL staff had located new offices and were back to business.
The ICCL is needed as much today as it was in 1976 and will continue to be involved in the process of developing Ireland into a mature, fully functioning democracy where the human rights of all of its citizens and inhabitants are upheld and reflected in its laws, policies and practices.
Malachy Murphy
Co-chairperson of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Dublin 7
STATEMENT
Increasing social housing provision is central to addressing homelessness
Progress has been made in recent years to address the needs of people who are homeless, as a result of increased investment in services and effective partnerships between statutory and voluntary services. Most notably, fewer people are sleeping rough and we are seeing a reduction in the number of families presenting as homeless.
Such progress leaves no room for complacency. While homeless services are improving, a crisis remains, reflecting our collective failure to provide long-term sustainable homes for people at risk of or experiencing homelessness.
Thousands of people each year still find themselves out-of-home, and Focus Ireland works daily with people living, sometimes for years, in emergency accommodation where sometimes basic levels of privacy are not available. Many people have worked extremely hard to overcome personal, health and addiction difficulties only to find themselves in a downward spiral as they move from one insecure short-term tenancy to another, unable to put down roots and create a home.
In the midst of what is a complex problem, the simple fact remains that we do not have adequate housing to meet the needs of the most vulnerable within our society. While recently published figures highlight the record levels of house completions (80,957 in 2005), the reality is that affordable, secure and appropriate housing remains out of reach of many of the people we work with.
Our experience is that access to supported social housing is necessary for many people moving out of homelessness – that is, small housing developments with on-site or visiting support to assist people who have specific needs related to health, addiction, personal or social issues.
For others, support is only necessary in the short term, and independent social housing or secure private rented accommodation should be an option. The reality is that both are very hard to access. While supply has increased in the private rented sector, it remains an insecure tenancy with high costs and poor standards at the low end of the market.
The latest assessment of housing need shows 43,684 households in housing need nationally, and the 2004 NESC report 'Housing in Ireland: Policy and Performance' highlights that 73,000 net social housing units are needed between 2005 and 2012 to meet existing and future need. Between January and September 2005, 3,207 social housing units were produced.
If we are to address homelessness then we must increase the level of social housing available. Focus Ireland is not just naming this problem but is committed to being part of the solution. We already provide 300 supported homes for people moving out of homeless and are committed to providing a further 800 homes in the next five years.
This is no small undertaking. Funding this development will be challenging but we are confident that with the support of the statutory and public fundraising, the costs can be met. Perhaps the bigger challenge will be finding appropriate housing and overcoming the resistance to social housing developments, a legacy of poor planning and provision in the past.
Addressing these issues requires effective partnerships, political leadership and a commitment by local authorities, as well as voluntary housing providers like Focus Ireland, to ensure that housing is of a high standard, is integrated within the local community and is supported by adequate services.
Increasing social housing provision alone will not prevent or solve homelessness, but without it people will remain locked in a cycle of homelessness denied the basic right to live in a place they can call home.
Declan Jones
Focus Ireland
More www.focusireland.com