We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
First published 3.20pm
FATHER PETER MCVERRY has called for more action to be taken to combat Dublin’s homeless crisis.
This follows the news yesterday that a woman and her three children were made to spend the night in an industrial unit because the credit card used by Dublin City Council’s homeless service was maxed out.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Sean O’Rourke programme, the campaigner said that he had come across a similar situation a number of weeks ago, but had not brought it forward as he had no way of verifying the information.
He also said that he had been informed of 12 families currently living in cars in Dublin.
The Dublin Region Homeless Executive has said that after following up operationally there is no verification of these 12 families.
The priest pointed to difficulties in coordination between different State bodies hindering the creation of accommodation. He referred to the inability to rejuvenate O’Devaney Gardens as an example of this.
Homelessness in Dublin has been steadily increasing since last year. In May the number of homeless families in emergency accommodation was at 490, a figure that rose to 531 by June.
In a statement, the Dublin Region Homeless Executive has said that the credit card belonging to Dublin City Council’s Central Placement Service had reached its maximum limit due to high demand.
“The limit has been renewed and extended and we continually work to accommodate families who are experiencing homelessness,” it said.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I only hope that one day I can be as happy as that guy in the stock photo..
Have you tried crack?
By the looks of the train his journey could be Amsterdam related.
And the eyes. The eyes too.
I don’t think he has any pants on.
He looks very like country and western star Mike Denver.
I think he’s flashing us
You can be absolutely sure you’d be quicker getting of your train and walking Between the stations than taking a train going through that tunnel. Most other countries they talk about electrifying rail and putting in high speed trains. In Ireland we spend millions on consultants and planning to tell us to build a tunnel for bog standard diesel trains then decide to announce to great fanfare the reopening of a piece of 18th century infrastructure. Absolute shambles!
I first heard about this project at a DTA (Dublin Transport Authority) meeting in 1991.
the same junket is probably still managed by dinosaurs
Off topic a bit, but…..the amount of waste dumped from ballyfermot houses just outside heuston is a disgrace.
It only took the Irish government 128 years to realise the value of the Phoenix Park tunnel which the Victorians had realised as far back as 1887!
Isn’t it also amazing how far-seeing and ambitious the Victorians were when it came to economic infrastructure, by comparison to Irish governments since 1922? The Victorians could see the value in, and had no mental problem, building underground railways as far back as the 19th century, whereas in the 21st century we in Ireland are just tentatively beginning to consider the possibilities!
I love Ireland, but for our own sake it’s no harm to point out how slow we can be at times.
To be fair, this Govt easing in power for the first 122 of those. In fact, no Irish govt was
The problem lies with Connolly Station, they can only get 12 trains per hour in and out.
Dublin was in line to have an underground built but our great leaders put them out and then got rid of the trams. An Irish politicians idea of forward planning is Tuesday week.
What’s this? Is Ireland finally coming into the 21st century?
They had tunnels for trains back in the 1800′s I’m afraid.
Yes, our newest piece of rail infrastructure actually was build by Brits with a little bit of foresight over a hundred years ago.
It was built by the Great Southern and Western Railway, an Irish company and ancestor of CIE.
It certainly wasn’t built by CIE because they’ve done little to no infrastructure investment since the foundation of the state.
The only thing CIE built was bus aras and the spent a fortune renovating it to look exactly the same. A truly awful building. The British did build the tunnel in the park and would’ve built a proper underground in Dublin before they leaft us at the mercy of develara n his corrupt Mafia.
What about the DART service?
how about growing some cojones and building a metro fit for a growing city?
If it goes ion fire it can raise from its ashes then?
Cost? Low density city.
This is a very small investment which will together along with new luas line, create an interconnected rail network with about 5 lines in Dublin. That’s amazing return on investment.
A metro doesn’t really have to be underground.
We just need to have a unified pricng system, so you can take a suburban train to connolly, then hop on the luas for a single fare.
When will kent station be demolished and replaced with something a little more modern and isn’t a death trap.It’s an embarrassment for a second city.The bus station has become the daily hangout for the Simon Community crew.
“mind the gap”
€13.7 million to clean up 700m of existing track? Now thats what I call a gravy train.
Believe it or not infrastructure actually costs money.
Search Eagle – and especially anything that involves tunnels! I imagine that the tunnel has to be largely renovated and restored and the track renewed and upgraded. Heavy rail, which this is, is intrinsically expensive which is why it needs scale to be an efficient investment. Of course this is also why rail is not comercially viable in most of Ireland – low population density and low usage.
You know there’s more to the connection than the 700m tunnel, right?
price hike coming soon so……..sure how else are they going to pay for all this upgrade….
Irish Rail need trains with bigger carriages im a human not a sardine.
What about the crappy route as far as Enfield and further on the Sligo line. They seem to run extra services as far as Maynooth, yet Maynooth is also serviced by Dublin bus. It’s almost impossible to go into Dublin for a night out and get back home. Enfield being the nearest bus or train to where I live. Last train is ridiculously early and figuring out what his leaves and what time and where it stops along the way would take a degree.
There really ought to be a 24-hour monorail from your one-off house in Co. Meath to Dublin city centre
Did someone say Monorail?
I hear those things are awfully loud
A pain I know all too well my son…go find yourself a Dirty yolk living in Dublin and crash with her on nights out…no shortage of them trust me…!
Very presumptuous Ronan. I live in a village. In a housing estate. With no public transport in the Only house I could afford in the height of the madness. Hardly unreasonable to ask for a service that could leave Dublin at ten or eleven at night to enable us to at least partake in events and a social outlet. I’m sure we are not alone in this.
@that’s all folks… Being serious there is a twenty past eleven 151 bus eireann along the quays that serves Enfield, gotten it many times. Obviously you’ve never bothered even looking it up. Or night link to Maynooth at weekends later and a score in a taxi will get you home rest of the way.
Well, That’s all folks, it is actually unreasonable to expect an unsustainable public service bus to operate with 5 people on board over a fairly long distance, or for near-empty trains to operate late at night for a handful of revellers.
I’m all for commuting hour services to be run at a loss if necessary, to enable people to work, but village living cannot be accommodated by spending limited transport budgets on the desires of a few. Dublin is still chronically under-serviced from a public transport perspective, and investment in getting people around our economic engine provides far more economic return – and I say this as a Cork native and resident!
Is there a chance the track might bend?
That’s all folks, one of the reasons your house was affordable was because it was poorly serviced by public transport. It was therefore less valuable than one closer to a metropolitan area or better served by public transport. It is a *little* unreasonable to expect us all to pay extra tax so you can party and simultaneously increase the value of your home.
Rónán, I’m impressed! A Cork native supporting Dublin. I hope this is a pseudonym or you face ostracisation in Cork! BTW, I applaud your logic about public transport which is a function of the choices we have made or not made in ireland.
Mono-..D’oh
It glides as softly as a cloud…
were you sent here by the devil?
Slightly off topic but heard an interview on UK radio this morning and one guy said that he actually pays more in a year for his rail season ticket than he does for his mortgage. Oh the joys of privatisation.
The service didn’t improve when they privatised it either, which is unusual.
Actually Le Tigre, that’s what the interview was about, late running and undependable trains.
I remember going under the tunnel when the GAA specials used to use it crossing over to Connolly. I don’t know why it was safe up to around 2000 but then not? Hopefully match specials will be able to use Connolly again.
Was in Mallow station last Friday where there were three trains in the station at the same time. I was travelling to Kerry. The Kerry train was behind the one I arrived on, therefore did not see it, only saw the other so assumed that was it. But no. As a result missed my train to Kerry. Bear in mind, no digital displays, no announcements, no way of distinguishing what train was going where from what platform. I had to wait two hours for the next train to Kerry. Really backward and poor service all round. Get the basics right first Irish Rail.
You can ask someone if you’re unsure?
Let’s see this for what it really is. Pre election posturing. It won’t be ready until after the election when we realise it’s almost worthless vs the absolutely crucial dart underground that can single handedly transform Dublin into a modern European city
The sooner the rail network is privitised the better,bring in someone like Branson to run it.
Privatising the rail network will ensure that ticket prices only go up and will probably result in less frequent services on routes that are less profitable, and then there’ll be tears in the comments section from the same people who are now calling for privatisation.
Privatisation and letting the likes of Branson in might work for the UK’s train service with it’s large urbanised population, but it might not pan out the same with Ireland and it’s widely dispersed rural population.
To be fair there are a lot of commuters travelling from Cavan Meath and Louth to Dublin daily, would these people not be entitled to a train too?
You mean Mary, the line to Navan promised by Noel Dempsey hasn’t been built? That was so long ago it was written in Ogham but then it was just before an election. Isn’t it strange how government ministers and TDs discover a sense of civic pride and social conscience around that time?
About bloody time.
Still; why a small city, such as Dublin, feels the need to have two stations is beyond me.
Delft, a city of 300,000, has two train stations (Delft Centraal just recently renovated and moved fully underground) and an underground metro system under construction. This is on top of multiple tram and bus routes.
Dublin could actually do with more train stations. Rotterdam, a city of comparable size, has 5 train stations fed by 5 metro lines and 9 regular service tram lines. Dublin has two which are not even directly fed by 2 tram lines and a single metro line which won’t even be ready until 2030. While it is a bit of an extreme comparison, it does go to show how far behind Dublin really is when it comes to public transport.
@Ían
Glasgow, a comparable city, has not only two main stations, but a substantially electrified suburban rail network (partially underground) that puts the rubbish we have to shame, and an underground subway that they’re in the process of renovating.
” and a single metro line which won’t even be ready until 2030. ”
I wouldn’t even hold my breath for that. FG have quietly cancelled Metro North and intend to replace with it a cheaper Luas instead, even though the capacity of the Luas is already insufficient to deal with the demand. They’re gearing up to cancel DART Underground next month as well. Plenty of money to be found for motorways though!
Irish politicians don’t give a rat’s ass about public transport because they never use it, and their constituents don’t make enough productive noise about it.
Cork to Armagh
The benefits of any transportation improvement brought about by the belated re-opening of this Victorian tunnel, and the Luas upgrade, will be offset by the economically insane proposal to ban cars from Dublin city centre.
The re-opening of a tunnel under the Phoenix Park won’t compensate for the destruction to trade and life in Dublin city centre which will be wrought by a car ban, no matter what the PR and groupthink merchants in Dublin City Council and the Department of Transport are likely to say.
There is no plan to ban cars from Dublin City Centre. There’s a plan to make college green public transport only as is required due to the Luas extension, something which should have been done decades ago irrespective of the Luas. There are plenty of other streets in the city for private cars to roam free.
Does that mean we can avail of a Cork – Derry train ???
All well and good until a train develops “technical problems” between Hazelhatch and Sallins , bringing the whole network to a standstill for 2 hours.
Says a lot that this hasn’t been done years earlier – I would not be surprised if some people making decisions in the past didn’t want it cos the ‘brits’ built it
Irish Rail has been run by ‘a Brit’ for many years.
Could they not put money into the bus service instead? So jobs wouldn’t be lost through privatisation
Buses are more efficient for short-distance hops but they will rarely match up to the sheer capacity and speed of a modern train network for mid-long distance commuter usage. Does Irish Rail match up to that description? They certainly do not, however without investment the rail network will not be capable of modernising.
We desperately need to boost the capacity and efficiency of the rail network.
Difficult to see how that can be done Jason The only place where it make economic sense is in the greater Dublin area and the physical space just isn’t there to do that without going underground.
The morning trains from Gorey, a distance of c50 miles, take just under two hours to get to Connolly because of congestion, not a selling point for commuters who can do it in one and a half by bus.
The main issue with rail congestion is that there are simply too few stations in the major cities with little/no connecting services. Look at cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam where they have 6 and 5 stations respectively connected with local underground and tram systems to handle the outflow of commuters and distribute this more evenly outside of the central stations.
In comparison, Dublin has no outlying stations which could reasonably distribute the flow to the main economic areas of the city and poor connecting systems to distribute the flow of commuters to the main economic nodes of the city.
How about new options for someone to commute from Kildare to Kilkenny, oh wait! Semi-private…
Having not been on a thomas the tank train in a long time. I have a question.
Seat belts ? I noticed he (pic) is not wearing one.
All other psv have them and it’s compulsory (Coach. Taxi )
have your say