Homeless crisis an ‘autopsy of our national life’, says Enda Kenny

The best way to honour Jonathan Corrie, the man “who died on the Dáil’s and the nation’s doorstep” last week, is to implement the strategy on homelessness, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said.

In a speech signalling a change of Government focus from exclusively on the economy to include societal needs, Mr Kenny said: “Our homeless crisis is a kind of autopsy of our national life, our priorities.”

He told the Dáil of his experience last Thursday night on the streets of Dublin with Lord Mayor Christy Burke and volunteers who visit and support those without homes.

Survival

The Taoiseach recommended that other TDs spend time seeing how the homeless survived, the “men and women, swaddled in their blue sleeping bags” to whom the volunteers brought “not only food but company, comfort”.

In a Dáil debate on homelessness, Mr Kenny asked: “What is a bond yield to a man or woman staring back at you through yellow eyes? What use is a debt-for-equity swap when you’re shaking with dread and cold, afraid to go to a hostel in case you’re attacked or robbed? What is economic sovereignty when all you want is the next fix and five minutes of oblivion?”

He knew “for sure that politics of the right and left will not equip us for the changes we are to face here at home and all over Europe.

“The centre must hold, but just as we need sensible and strong economic policy, we will need also a new human and social chemistry, particularly in the interface of our public and private lives.”

Sodden blankets

He described seeing “rats skittering across sodden blankets, beds of needles” and a moment when “on Grafton Street, a Gucci sign beams over the remnants of humanity”.

He said parents without a home told him: “Yes, of course, we need shelter immediately, but shelter is no good to us in the long term. Our children, our family need a home, so we can have a life.”

Mr Kenny insisted that “with our €2 billion investment [in social housing], we will make sure they have that home, that life”.

The reality was “there are hundreds of men and women sleeping rough on our streets because of the disintegration of their interior life”.