Homeless Agency must not waste money 2004-11-13

A statement by Alice Leahy, Director and Co-founder TRUST, on the Homeless Agency's cavalier spending.

TRUST, Bride Road, Dublin 8

In TRUST we are involved in providing health and social services for people who are homeless and are acutely aware how serious the current situation is and only this week I was asked by the Gardaí to go to the city morgue to identify a man who was homeless, allegedly found dead sleeping out not far from RTÉ At a time when the most marginalised die on the streets and do not make news any more, the spectacle of the Homeless Agency throwing away money will undermine public confidence and all agencies working in this field must take a stand against this type of indefensible expenditure.

We all have a responsibility, especially those of us working in this area, to try to generate public understanding of the needs of those who find themselves homeless. Providing ammunition to those who would be quite happy to spend much less on meeting the needs of those who are outsiders, and in many ways voiceless in our increasingly affluent society, is inexcusable and those responsible for this fiasco should apologise to the people who are homeless in Dublin and the general public after they scrap this idea.