Facilities lie idle as seven homeless die

Posted on April 30, 2008 | Category: Health

What kind of world are we living in?

If you walk, say, a kilometre in Central Dublin, as I do on almost a daily basis, depending on the hour you’re likely to come across at least several homeless people sitting on the ground, begging, sometimes two on every street or bridge. It’s a very visible indictment of our supposedly wealthy society, notwithstanding the fact one sees this in many cities around the world. The thing is, Dublin is a small city by world standards, and the solution is therefore relatively simple and the financial committment relatively small. The odd thing is, according to the RTE report quoted below, someone has been paying attention in that there are now some facilities available, but as happens so often in Ireland, the dots haven’t been joined up – there’s no money to fund their staffing and maintainance.

RTE reports:

Seven homeless people died in Dublin in a two-week period over Easter this year and at the same time, Prime Time said, at least five major homeless facilities in Dublin were either lying idle or being under-utilised due to a lack of HSE funding.

A 30-bed facility in James Street was due to open earlier this year but remains closed, while in Brunswick Street only seven of 17 family units have been used since January.

Prime Time also reported that a new homeless service in Middle Abbey Street has been denied HSE funding for running costs and in Cork Street, an emergency accommodation facility for homeless people with special needs remains under-utilised.

In Bolton Street, the future of a proposed accommodation facility also hangs in the balance.

Responding to the report, the HSE denied there were cutbacks but said it was in negotiations with the Department of Health to get additional funding.

Would those seven people have died if these facilities were available? Perhaps. But if even one of them could have been saved then we should hang our collective heads in shame.

Full RTE report

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