A house or apartment that is owned by someone who does not live in it, is not that person’s home, but it is their property. If the property has a tenant living in it, it is now their home, even though they are not the owner.

There are – still – more than 11,000 people homeless. Homelessness figures have been record-breaking, (you might say exceeding their targets) for six months in a row.  But the Government’s targets for social housing have not even been met, never mind exceeded. This fact has been further compounded by the Department of Housing’s reported underspend of €340 million in its housing budget for last year, which raises further questions about the Department’s capacity and determination to lessen the severity of this crisis. 

Prison overcrowding affects prisoners’ ability to attend education, work, appointments and social activities, and puts a strain on stretched in-prison psychological and addiction supports. There are few, if any, downsides to having fewer people in a prison.

Letting people know, in simple terms, what they are entitled to and how to get it is the basic level of public service that we should be able to expect from Government.

Optimism has its place but the reality of the current housing and homelessness issue should not inspire it.

Most people want a speedier, more efficient planning process, but we must consider the question of who it will be benefit most. Will it be better for local communities, for the environment, for biodiversity, for climate action? We need more housing, but we also need climate action and the former cannot compromise the latter.

Christians don’t need to wage any wars in defence of Christmas. But we do need to find new ways to sustain the transformative message of Christmas in our contemporary age.

Weeks of relentless advertising have started, all designed to part people from their money at this, ‘the most wonderful time of the year’. But there’s nothing wonderful about it for the 11,000 people who are homeless, or for more than 3,000 children who will spend it in emergency accommodation. What kind of Christmas are they going to have?

Even when landlords are not selling up, tenants in private rental accommodation have limited security. One recent example reveals that private tenants in receipt of HAP don’t have the same security of tenure as someone in local authority housing, yet subsidising tenants in private rentals has been used by the State for years as a substitute for directly providing a functioning social housing system.

Our research had shown us, time and time again, that homelessness is not an inevitability, not some unintended by-product of the normal functioning of an economically developed society that had to be accepted as a part of life. The well intentioned, but essentially incorrect, statement that ‘homelessness can happen to anyone’ is not backed by the evidence.