Sir, - Sean O'Neill (December 18th) highlights the Government's lack of initiative to deal with the homeless in our society.
He will be interested to learn that Focus Ireland issued a report recently announcing a 60 per cent increase in people sleeping rough in Dublin. The report is a damning condemnation of the problem. Yet, that same week, the Minister for the Environment, Noel Dempsey, returned £27 million of his housing budget to the Exchequer, because he hadn't managed to spend it.
It had obviously never occurred to the Minister that a phone-call to Sr Stanislaus or Fr McVerry would reveal several projects where even some of that money could be spent. - Yours, etc.,
Desmond Graham, Chairperson, Donnycarney Unemployment Action Group, Dublin 5.