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Child Item

Homelessness: The disgrace that is Varadkar and the Government

JupiterKid

When Leo Varadkar assumed office of Taoiseach he did the obligatory lap of honour, with the international media fawning over his sexuality and mixed ethnicity, making out the Ireland was now such a modern, progressive society. He was photographed comparing socks (WTF??) with Canadian premier Justin Trudeau.

But look at his record. As Minister for Health, he slashed the already paltry budget for mental health services, an utterly reprehensible act in my view. Irish mental health services are among the worst in the developed world and need more funding, not less. Look at the suicide rates amongst our young. Also, as a gay man myself I found it a bit disingenious that Varadkar chose to come out shortly before the same sex marriage referendum, which if you may not recall he originally opposed.

But then again, our public health system is in a mess generally as a brief stint in A&E in a major Dublin hospital showed me. Very unwell people left on trolleys in corridors for hours, overworked nurses and doctors and taking 11 hours to be seen by a doctor over a heart complaint.

Then there is Varadkar's statement on the housing crisis being over-exaggerated by charities and housing agencies. The pure gall of him to make such a flippant statement. Dublin has a serious housing emergency, a major social housing building programme would go a long way to solving that situation but no, the private market and the banking sector must prevail at all costs. I honestly can't see the situation changing one iota unless a general election takes place.

IMO Leo is a neo-liberal Thatcherite who talks the talk, but can't walk the walk. He has zero interest in the most vulnerable in Irish society. Sadly, I don't see many votes in mental health issues or housing issues, except to ensure those in the know and with connections ensure their over-inflated dwellings continue to rise in price.

It's a sad spectacle and IMO Leo is no supporter in social justice or equality, in any shape or form. The current minority FG govt are a lame duck. They seem to have no ability to tackle serious pressing social problems, particularly with housing and health. Where is the sense of vision? Where is the sense of doing things for the good of Irish society as a whole? I sure don't see it.

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end of the road

Wheeliebin30 wrote: »

When you take into account nearly half of the social houses offered are turned down because its not bedside me ma or the bookies im sure our "homeless" figures would probably be halfed.

Then the ones who deliberately go homeless to jump the list.

Its a scam that doesn't exist if people were realistic about their expectations.

again, these issues while issues, are over-exaggerated. the figure of refusals is a very small percentage and. half of council houses are not refused.

blanch152 wrote: »

The people of Dublin West elected Leo Varadkar.

Nothing shameful about pointing out that McVerry is unelected, has a vested interest in the subject, and may therefore be biased towards a certain view.

varadkar also has a vested interest. a vested interest in downplaying the issue and is byassed toards views that allow him to do that. certainly McVerry has a vested interest in solving the issue, or greatly reducing it, and he does know what he is talking about, as he has years of experience on the issue.

Wombatman

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Erica Fleming got her forever home by making decisions that many other single people don't do such as having a child before they are in a position to provide a home for that child. While not a scam, it's certainly an example of where the crisis is self made.

Your sample size of 1 is an impressive statistic.

So you are saying children are homeless because of their bad behavior?

The state is literally forcing mothers to push them out. Surely we have an obligation to care for them then.

MayoSalmon

Actually been more impressed with his rhetoric than anything I have heard from any Taoiseach in the last 30 years. Keep it up I would say.

end of the road

Red_Wake wrote: »

So they've got a hierarchy of priorities, placing the haves over the homeless have note?

This is probably the first time I've seen someone take the moral high ground on the basis of screwing over the poor to help the rich.

the lpt was about screwing over the have nots to help the haves. it is a tax many can't afford.

Everlong1 wrote: »

I'm delighted that we finally have a political leader in this country who's not afraid to challenge the cosy consensus that has led to the culture of welfare dependency and entitlement that contributed to the economic crash.

Fianna Fail spent decades throwing money at everyone on welfare to buy votes. The result is that we now have a culture of entitlement whereby a signifcant cohort of the population think that they can simply drop out of society and have Government provide them with a free house, free healthcare, free travel etc. etc. I personally know three people - all able bodied people, perfectly able to work and contribute to society - who have simply dropped out because it's easy now to live the welfare lifestyle if you're prepared to spend years gaming the system.

The front page of the Irish Times today features an article quoting Eileen Gleeson, director of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, as saying that endless handouts to the homeless are not helping in the long term and that lifestyle choices and behaviour of some homeless people are responsible for their plight. This is simple common sense which any intelligent person can see for themselves, but of course the predictable outrage has already begun from those with an interest in maintaining the entitlement culture.

By all means get rid of Fine Gael from Government if you want to see the country's economy destroyed again by a Fianna Fail/Sinn Fein coalition who'll throw money at everyone to buy votes until the inevitable economic catastrophe ensues again. We've tried the nicey nicey liberal / left wing approach to economics and it's failed miserably. If being right wing means wanting to see people contributing to society by working for a living and taking responsibility for their lives, then I'm happy to be described as right wing and will happily vote for a political party which shares my views.

varadkar hasn't challenged anything though. he simply did the old deny, deny, deny. the "entitlement" and wellfare dependant culture is over exaggerated. yes it's a small problem but it's not a solvible problem. the amount who actually don't want to work are ridiculously tiny, and what employer would want to employ them anyway.
it's absolutely the case that homelessness is often a complicated issue with no simple answers, but burying our heads in the sand, denying, and churning out simplistic statements won't solve or cut down the issue. both ff and fg destroyed the country via their lack of regulation and failure to tackle institutions like the banks. we have tried the right wing approach to economics and it's failed miserably also.
by the way, free health care is a good thing, unless you believe people who can't afford it should be left to die?

jimmycrackcorm

Wombatman wrote:

To suggest that homelessness is down to an individuals bad behaviour over the years is absolutely disgraceful.

Baron de Charlus wrote:

Unless you're arguing that all of these new homeless are scammers who, for some reason, have suddenly decided to start trying milking the system, you can't write the problem off in this fashion.

Erica Fleming got her forever home by making decisions that many other single people don't do such as having a child before they are in a position to provide a home for that child. While not a scam, it's certainly an example of where the crisis is self made.

Rick Shaw wrote:

McV makes the following observation in relation to Leo's figures.

You can be sure that the figures in other countries have gone up since 2015, not down.

McMurphy

McV makes the following observation in relation to Leo's figures.

It started with the Taoiseach when he said we had a low level of homelessness compared to other countries. He’s actually quoting an OECD report from 2015 which is now out of date and which explicitly states in the report that you cannot use the report to compare homelessness between countries because countries use different definitions of homelessness.

Which has me wondering if Leo was being intentionally misleading, or factually unprepared.

McV followed up with this.

Other countries included people who were staying with friends or relatives because they could not find alternative accommodation, he said.

If Ireland’s figures – which cover the number of people in emergency accommodation – were calculated in the same way, McVerry said, “our figures would be around 70,000 or 80,000″.

No prizes for guessing who's integrity I believe is at stake here.

Chips Lovell

In some countries. Not in Ireland.

Here is the OECD report. The relevant table is on page three. If you want to do a like-with-like comparison, you should only be comparing countries with "No" listed in column 3.

Wheeliebin30

Matt Barrett wrote: »

Varadkar compared Ireland's homeless figures to a report from 2015, from other countries, which includes people living with their parents or friends as homeless. Using these figures he dangerously downplayed a crisis he seems to know very little about.
McVerry pointed out that we do not include people living with their parents or friends as homeless in our figures, but if Varadkar truly, genuinely wants to compare like with like, our figures would be even higher.
Either Varadkar's team willfully or ignorantly supplied him with figures not relevant to our crisis.
Varadkar using any figures, even irrelevant ones from other countries to downplay a national crisis exacerbated by and creating constantly record breaking levels, directly due to his policies and the policies of his government and their partners Fianna Fail, is absolutely irresponsible and shameful.

Hold on.

Someone living with their parents is now classed as homeless??????

Ah here...

James Brown

Varadkar compared Ireland's homeless figures to a report from 2015, from other countries, which includes people living with their parents or friends as homeless. Using these figures he dangerously downplayed a crisis he seems to know very little about.
McVerry pointed out that we do not include people living with their parents or friends as homeless in our figures, but if Varadkar truly, genuinely wants to compare like with like, our figures would be even higher.
Either Varadkar's team willfully or ignorantly supplied him with figures not relevant to our crisis.
Varadkar using any figures, even irrelevant ones from other countries to downplay a national crisis exacerbated by and creating constantly record breaking levels, directly due to his policies and the policies of his government and their partners Fianna Fail, is absolutely irresponsible and shameful.

Idbatterim

Despite Micheal Martin's posturing to the contrary, there's no doubt in my mind that they WILL go into coalition with SF after the next election if that's the only way the grubby little shysters can take power. Martin's a pathological liar like the rest of them and will happily get into bed with SF when the time comes.

very good point. I dont think they will over take FG come the next election like they hope they will. I dont think the public will stand for this current farce arrangement either. Watch them go in with SF to counter FG and its "right wing" stance :rolleyes: The same FG throwing out welfare increases to everyone... You couldnt make it up, then you remember that its Ireland :rolleyes:

It's down to the "bad behaviour" of bankers, property developers and the government more like.

the buck stops firmly with the government. Bankers and property developers look after their own interests, like you do! what a shocker!

the state could have retained BOI or AIB in state ownership, they didnt, I wonder why! All I literally see now, when I see most politicians, FG mostly though as they are currently "in power" are walking and talking snakes!

Idbatterim

Varadkar's election to Dublin west does not bestow knowledge upon him. It does not make him an authority on a crises he has shown he is completely out of touch with.

He bangs on about the homeless and housing crisis! He objects to a four floor block in his area. When he was transport minister he did a useless job. He bangs on about infrastructure being put in place first, before housing, the irony!

Increasing the world class welfare is a higher priority for him that metro north, than addressing the scandalous marginal rate etc!

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/taoiseach-leo-varadkar-defends-objections-to-constituency-development-claiming-area-has-been-blighted-36155759.html

Wombatman

Eileen Gleeson, director of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, said long-term homelessness resulting from years of “bad behaviour” cannot be solved by the efforts of “ad hoc” unauthorised groups.
“Let’s be under no illusion here, when somebody becomes homeless it doesn’t happen overnight, it takes years of bad behaviour probably, or behaviour that isn’t the behaviour of you and me,” she told Dublin City Council’s policing committee.

To suggest that homelessness is down to an individuals bad behaviour over the years is absolutely disgraceful.

Outrageous rents, an economic crash, mental illness, drug addiction, repossessions, abuse etc all lead to homelessness.

It's down to the "bad behaviour" of bankers, property developers and the government more like.

Fooking raging at that statement :mad::mad::mad:

Fat cats gonna fat cat under Leo for sure.

Everlong1

Wheeliebin30 wrote: »

When you take into account nearly half of the social houses offered are turned down because its not bedside me ma or the bookies im sure our "homeless" figures would probably be halfed.

Then the ones who deliberately go homeless to jump the list.

Its a scam that doesn't exist if people were realistic about their expectations.

Spot on. Wasn't there some woman on the front page of the papers not that long ago, supposedly living in a car with her three children, who then turned out to have been offered housing repeatedly and turned it down for ridiculous reasons?

Chips Lovell

Some posts deleted and carded because they didn't heed the previous mod warning.

Everlong1

Idbatterim wrote: »

He is a grade A spoofer! you are totally right about it, he has talked the "hard talk" but done nothing about it. I actually believe it was Leo who said welfare increases should be across the board, i.e. to the unemployed, this wasnt a FF demand laughably enough, apparently!

I think after their last election and the "a recovery for everyone" the campaign went bad enough that they are now literally trying to please everyone, even those that would never vote for them!!!

Also who do you blame for the sense of entitlement, people with no work ethic to start with who have everything handed to them on a plate or just ridiculously weak government who simply hand it out like confetti every budget just looking to retain power. My anger would be far more directed at government!!!

Fg will be the main party for years to come in my opinion, once they dont shoot themselves in the foot majorly. All of this bull**** you see on FB, "cant wait for the next election to get them out" LOL anyone anti FF or FG would want to get real (and I have no time for either, FF are a joke, FG the best of an appalling lot of options in my opinion). Its going to be tweedle sh*t and tweedle sh**er sharing power for years to come in my opinion!

Disappointing alright to see Leo pandering to the "more welfare" brigade. I'm hoping it's a temporary posture to buy him time until after the next election.

I'd be delighted if FG were "the main party for years to come" but given the inability of a large part of the Irish electorate to see the bigger picture I wouldn't be at all optimistic about that. Fianna Fail, a party who have TWICE destroyed the country's economy in the last 40 years, a party proven again and again to be corrupt, a party who, druing their last term in power, denied the right to vote to the people of THREE constituencies in order to cling onto power, still receive the support of a large number of voters. Despite Micheal Martin's posturing to the contrary, there's no doubt in my mind that they WILL go into coalition with SF after the next election if that's the only way the grubby little shysters can take power. Martin's a pathological liar like the rest of them and will happily get into bed with SF when the time comes.

Who do I blame for the sense of entitlement? Well ultimately the Government sets the tone for the country as a whole, but the people who vote for the parties who pander to the "more welfare" ethos are then to blame by definition. If you don't want your taxes squandered on the welfare lifestyle brigade then you need to make that clear to the political parties who have promoted that lifestyle for years. Politicians will go with whatever the prevailing wind is. If enough people demand a change it'll happen eventually. I imagine that Leo's "people who get up early in the morning" comments was an exercise in kite flying to see if people are ready for a harder line on the entitlement culture. One of the reasons I post in threads like this is precisely to contribute to such a debate and try and encourage others of a like mind to do so.

Chips Lovell

Hold on there now. You can't write off the current homelessness crisis as a scam.

The fact is that we've always had some people turning down social housing for trivial reasons or attempting to find ways to jump up the list. This is nothing new.

What is new is a very pronounced spike in the number of people categorised as homeless, which has nearly tripled in the past three years.

Unless you're arguing that all of these new homeless are scammers who, for some reason, have suddenly decided to start trying milking the system, you can't write the problem off in this fashion.

James Brown

blanch152 wrote: »

The people of Dublin West elected Leo Varadkar.

Nothing shameful about pointing out that McVerry is unelected, has a vested interest in the subject, and may therefore be biased towards a certain view.

Varadkar's election to Dublin west does not bestow knowledge upon him. It does not make him an authority on a crises he has shown he is completely out of touch with.
Varadkar is also a vested interest.
I would personally take the word of a respected person with decades of experience in the area over a dangerously ill advised politician with seemingly no sense of the consequences his PR/spin can result in.
The fact that McVerry's integrity is being brought into question against Varadkar's err in judgment and blatant downplaying of a national crisis is shameful.

blanch152

Matt Barrett wrote: »

Your critique of the McVerry article is very one sided and inaccurate.
Also, who elected Varadkar?
Not to mention his bias in favour of the 'nothing to see here' industry, (AKA FG).
McVerry is a respected, feet on the ground expert.
It's obvious that Varadkar's only input of late is to downplay it and that's not acceptable. He should have carried on ignoring it, that would cause less damage.
You comparing any concern regarding homelessness and the reputation of McVerry to the Fine Gael governmental partners Fianna Fail to downplay the issue is pretty shameful to be honest.

It's the oldest conservative trick in the book to dismiss or downplay real life crises. Varadkar is a disgrace.

The people of Dublin West elected Leo Varadkar.

Nothing shameful about pointing out that McVerry is unelected, has a vested interest in the subject, and may therefore be biased towards a certain view.

Wheeliebin30

When you take into account nearly half of the social houses offered are turned down because its not bedside me ma or the bookies im sure our "homeless" figures would probably be halfed.

Then the ones who deliberately go homeless to jump the list.

Its a scam that doesn't exist if people were realistic about their expectations.

James Brown

blanch152 wrote: »

Who is McVerry? Who elected him to decide things?

FF's operational mode during the Celtic Tiger years was to listen to two groups - the Galway tent lads and the poverty industry lads. That way they could look after their friends yet still claim to be helping the poor.

Thankfully the Galway tent lads are no longer listened to but the poverty industry lads are still with us, still saying the same old stuff, no new ideas, solutions that only work in a socialist paradise and not in the real world, just against everything.

Your critique of the McVerry article is very one sided and inaccurate.
Also, who elected Varadkar?
Not to mention his bias in favour of the 'nothing to see here' industry, (AKA FG).
McVerry is a respected, feet on the ground expert.
It's obvious that Varadkar's only input of late is to downplay it and that's not acceptable. He should have carried on ignoring it, that would cause less damage.
You comparing any concern regarding homelessness and the reputation of McVerry to the Fine Gael governmental partners Fianna Fail to downplay the issue is pretty shameful to be honest.

It's the oldest conservative trick in the book to dismiss or downplay real life crises. Varadkar is a disgrace.

Wheeliebin30

The CEO of the peter mcverry trust is on 100k a year.

Very charitable indeed.

James Brown

christy c wrote: »

I thought it was generally accepted that we had lower homeless numbers than a lot of other countries. Is the gist of what Peter McV is saying is that we are higher than other countries? Is this true?

Varadkar cited stats which were from other countries and included friends and family living back home, couch surfing among it's homeless. These stats were higher than ours in a number of countries. Varadkar was using them to downplay the crisis.
McVerry pointed out that it's not straightforward to compare to other countries and more importantly, we, in Ireland don't included friends and family living back home, couch surfing in our homeless statistics, therefore he's not comparing like with like and our figures would be higher still if we used the same metrics.
Only mention a crisis to dismiss it is a very irresponsible move for the supposed leader of all the people.

blanch152

christy c wrote: »

I thought it was generally accepted that we had lower homeless numbers than a lot of other countries. Is the gist of what Peter McV is saying is that we are higher than other countries? Is this true?

If you read the article McVerry wasn't saying that we had more homeless than other countries.

What he was saying was that the numbers were two years old (new by international statistical standards) so out of date and didn't count the same thing in each country (this may well be true).

Where his argument falls down is that Ireland is one of the few Western countries paying any attention to the homeless problem so even if our numbers have gone up, we may have improved relative to other countries, making Varadkar's point even more true.

Similarly, if each country counts a different way, then we have no idea whether we are better or worse than another country. So if McVerry wanted to make a truthful, factual point, he could have said we don't know if the Taoiseach is telling the truth because of the above reasons.

Instead, McVerry, in a way typical of the poverty industry, engaged in spin and claimed that the Taoiseach was trying to downplay the problem, which if you read the Taoiseach's actual words, he wasn't.

The biggest problem with the likes of McVerry is that they can spin away for decades and they are accountable to nobody, they are not elected, they are appointed by quangos, they set up more quangos, that gobble up taxpayers money, and after all the money is spent, they tell us that things are worse than ever.

blanch152

Matt Barrett wrote: »

You are against McVerry's view, a man respected in the field versus a pomp and circumstance PR over substance, out of touch, lackluster politician?
.

Who is McVerry? Who elected him to decide things?

FF's operational mode during the Celtic Tiger years was to listen to two groups - the Galway tent lads and the poverty industry lads. That way they could look after their friends yet still claim to be helping the poor.

Thankfully the Galway tent lads are no longer listened to but the poverty industry lads are still with us, still saying the same old stuff, no new ideas, solutions that only work in a socialist paradise and not in the real world, just against everything.

Idbatterim

I'm delighted that we finally have a political leader in this country who's not afraid to challenge the cosy consensus that has led to the culture of welfare dependency and entitlement that contributed to the economic crash.

Fianna Fail spent decades throwing money at everyone on welfare to buy votes. The result is that we now have a culture of entitlement whereby a signifcant cohort of the population think that they can simply drop out of society and have Government provide them with a free house, free healthcare, free travel etc. etc. I personally know three people - all able bodied people, perfectly able to work and contribute to society - who have simply dropped out because it's easy now to live the welfare lifestyle if you're prepared to spend years gaming the system.

He is a grade A spoofer! you are totally right about it, he has talked the "hard talk" but done nothing about it. I actually believe it was Leo who said welfare increases should be across the board, i.e. to the unemployed, this wasnt a FF demand laughably enough, apparently!

I think after their last election and the "a recovery for everyone" the campaign went bad enough that they are now literally trying to please everyone, even those that would never vote for them!!!

Also who do you blame for the sense of entitlement, people with no work ethic to start with who have everything handed to them on a plate or just ridiculously weak government who simply hand it out like confetti every budget just looking to retain power. My anger would be far more directed at government!!!

By all means get rid of Fine Gael from Government if you want to see the country's economy destroyed again by a Fianna Fail/Sinn Fein coalition who'll throw money at everyone to buy votes until the inevitable economic catastrophe ensues again. We've tried the nicey nicey liberal / left wing approach to economics and it's failed miserably. If being right wing means wanting to see people contributing to society by working for a living and taking responsibility for their lives, then I'm happy to be described as right wing and will happily vote for a political party which shares my views.

Fg will be the main party for years to come in my opinion, once they dont shoot themselves in the foot majorly. All of this bull**** you see on FB, "cant wait for the next election to get them out" LOL anyone anti FF or FG would want to get real (and I have no time for either, FF are a joke, FG the best of an appalling lot of options in my opinion). Its going to be tweedle sh*t and tweedle sh**er sharing power for years to come in my opinion!

quintana76

Everlong1 wrote: »

I'm delighted that we finally have a political leader in this country who's not afraid to challenge the cosy consensus that has led to the culture of welfare dependency and entitlement that contributed to the economic crash.

Fianna Fail spent decades throwing money at everyone on welfare to buy votes. The result is that we now have a culture of entitlement whereby a signifcant cohort of the population think that they can simply drop out of society and have Government provide them with a free house, free healthcare, free travel etc. etc. I personally know three people - all able bodied people, perfectly able to work and contribute to society - who have simply dropped out because it's easy now to live the welfare lifestyle if you're prepared to spend years gaming the system.

The front page of the Irish Times today features an article quoting Eileen Gleeson, director of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, as saying that endless handouts to the homeless are not helping in the long term and that lifestyle choices and behaviour of some homeless people are responsible for their plight. This is simple common sense which any intelligent person can see for themselves, but of course the predictable outrage has already begun from those with an interest in maintaining the entitlement culture.

By all means get rid of Fine Gael from Government if you want to see the country's economy destroyed again by a Fianna Fail/Sinn Fein coalition who'll throw money at everyone to buy votes until the inevitable economic catastrophe ensues again. We've tried the nicey nicey liberal / left wing approach to economics and it's failed miserably. If being right wing means wanting to see people contributing to society by working for a living and taking responsibility for their lives, then I'm happy to be described as right wing and will happily vote for a political party which shares my views.

If he is so worried about handouts and homelessness why is he letting in all the 'refugees'.

[Deleted User]

Matt Barrett wrote: »

If you read the article McVerry said we don't count people sleeping on friends couches. The figures Varadkar was referencing do, hence his attitude and downplaying. You are against McVerry's view, a man respected in the field versus a pomp and circumstance PR over substance, out of touch, lackluster politician?

Do you agree with McVerry's figure or not? You kinda hopped into projecting your ideas of my opinion and hacking at the Taoiseach.

I'd take an elected and answerable leader with a mandate ahead of a self-appointed moral crusader any day of any week. Let him stick to his charity hobbies and away from the spin and hyperbole. He's no more truthful and no less agenda driven than anyone else.

christy c

I thought it was generally accepted that we had lower homeless numbers than a lot of other countries. Is the gist of what Peter McV is saying is that we are higher than other countries? Is this true?

James Brown

Everlong1 wrote: »

I'm delighted that we finally have a political leader in this country who's not afraid to challenge the cosy consensus that has led to the culture of welfare dependency and entitlement that contributed to the economic crash.

Fianna Fail spent decades throwing money at everyone on welfare to buy votes. The result is that we now have a culture of entitlement whereby a signifcant cohort of the population think that they can simply drop out of society and have Government provide them with a free house, free healthcare, free travel etc. etc. I personally know three people - all able bodied people, perfectly able to work and contribute to society - who have simply dropped out because it's easy now to live the welfare lifestyle if you're prepared to spend years gaming the system.

The front page of the Irish Times today features an article quoting Eileen Gleeson, director of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, as saying that endless handouts to the homeless are not helping in the long term and that lifestyle choices and behaviour of some homeless people are responsible for their plight. This is simple common sense which any intelligent person can see for themselves, but of course the predictable outrage has already begun from those with an interest in maintaining the entitlement culture.

By all means get rid of Fine Gael from Government if you want to see the country's economy destroyed again by a Fianna Fail/Sinn Fein coalition who'll throw money at everyone to buy votes until the inevitable economic catastrophe ensues again. We've tried the nicey nicey liberal / left wing approach to economics and it's failed miserably. If being right wing means wanting to see people contributing to society by working for a living and taking responsibility for their lives, then I'm happy to be described as right wing and will happily vote for a political party which shares my views.

We've a political leader who peddles inaccurate information to downplay a crisis. When your aim is to look after one section of society and dismiss another, that's what you have to do.
As regards the entitlement culture, who do you think has been in government these many years? The idea that Fine Gael are fighting the good fight is complete nonsense. Things are exactly they way FG set them up to be. Any issue with Fianna Fail should note, they are good enough in FG's books to partner with. The crash wasn't last year, it's time FG start taking responsibility for the current situation.

The times article also points out how wrong and out of touch Gleeson is.

Your last piece fits in with the Fianna Fail under Bertie and current Fine Gael PR. The scaremongering tactic that, similar to the abused wife syndrome; stick with us, for all our flaws, you'll be worse off without us, we're the best you can get.

Right wing does not mean wanting to see people contributing to society, not our right wing anyway.
We have working people who can't pay their way, reliant on state aid. We have billionaire tax exiles awarded government contracts. We have NAMA becoming a bank to ensure better loans for developers to build housing many of the public can't afford without state aid.

Housing, homelessness and health are in a worse state since Fine Gael took over. Following from their partners Fianna Fail, how anyone can look to the liberal/left fictitious bogey man is pure spin.

Deleted User wrote: »

I wouldn't pay two Bob for Peter McVerry's definition of homelessness if it adds up to seventy thousand people.

I'll say it again- if these matters are even worth debating then everyone should have a clearly defined and shared vocabulary so that 'homeless' means something.

Otherwise it's just vested interests and fringe parties frothing at each other and the majority of people's eyes glazing over.

There's people here seriously seem to believe that not owning your home makes you homeless. There's others that won't use the term for anything less than a rough sleeper.

How can you think you're not wanting your breath on the issue?

The media as always refusing to define and insist on clear terms are suiting their own agenda also, stirring the pot and taking attention from attempted solutions.

If you read the article McVerry said we don't count people sleeping on friends couches. The figures Varadkar was referencing do, hence his attitude and downplaying. You are against McVerry's view, a man respected in the field versus a pomp and circumstance PR over substance, out of touch, lackluster politician?
What ever about the media, it's very concerning when Varadkar's only input towards the issue downplays the crisis with outdated misleading stats. He's an abject failure as a leader.

McMurphy

Everlong1 wrote: »

I'm delighted that we finally have a political leader in this country who's not afraid to challenge the cosy consensus that has led to the culture of welfare dependency and entitlement that contributed to the economic crash.

Fianna Fail spent decades throwing money at everyone on welfare to buy votes. The result is that we now have a culture of entitlement whereby a signifcant cohort of the population think that they can simply drop out of society and have Government provide them with a free house, free healthcare, free travel etc. etc. I personally know three people - all able bodied people, perfectly able to work and contribute to society - who have simply dropped out because it's easy now to live the welfare lifestyle if you're prepared to spend years gaming the system.

The front page of the Irish Times today features an article quoting Eileen Gleeson, director of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, as saying that endless handouts to the homeless are not helping in the long term and that lifestyle choices and behaviour of some homeless people are responsible for their plight. This is simple common sense which any intelligent person can see for themselves, but of course the predictable outrage has already begun from those with an interest in maintaining the entitlement culture.

By all means get rid of Fine Gael from Government if you want to see the country's economy destroyed again by a Fianna Fail/Sinn Fein coalition who'll throw money at everyone to buy votes until the inevitable economic catastrophe ensues again. We've tried the nicey nicey liberal / left wing approach to economics and it's failed miserably. If being right wing means wanting to see people contributing to society by working for a living and taking responsibility for their lives, then I'm happy to be described as right wing and will happily vote for a political party which shares my views.

I think you're gonna be slightly annoyed when you finally get the details of our last budget so.