Sir, – On a recent visit to Dublin, from my home in Wexford, I was struck by the growing numbers of homeless people. One of those I met, a man who had been evicted by his landlord, for rent arrears of just two weeks, helped me find an explanation for the situation. He, like many others, was caught in a trap of injustice. In order to get welfare payments, which can fund hostel accommodation for them, homeless people must produce receipts for two nights’ hostel accommodation, (to satisfy the address requirement), costing €18. How, on the streets, they are expected to find €18, is unclear.
Not only are those caught in this trap going without shelter, they are also going without adequate food. The Simon soup and sandwiches run is saving them from starvation. This is a case where we, the people, must hold up our hands. Bunreacht na hÉireann, the Constitution Eamon de Valera framed, in 1937, explicitly states: “justice and charity shall inform all the institutions of the national life”.
If the Minister for Social Protection does not immediately remedy this injustice, she will be in clear breach of that Constitution, and, offending a Proclamation which promised to “cherish all the children of the nation equally”. It’s time that promise was kept, in a real sense, on the streets of Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Derry Limerick, and other urban centres. As temperatures hover near freezing, no one must be refused a room at the national inn. – Yours, etc,
CADHLA Ní FRITHILE,
Clonard, Wexford.