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A SENIOR OFFICIAL working with a homeless charity organisation has hit back at statement made by the former chair of the Housing Agency that homelessness is “normal” and that people working in advocacy were “goading” the government.
Mike Allen – director of advocacy with Focus Ireland – appeared on RTÉ’s Claire Byrne Live last night and responded to comment made by Conor Skehan last week.
Skehan – who served as chair of the government’s Housing Agency before he stepped down last year – repeated his claim that homelessness was “normal” and also hit out at homeless charities.
“We continuously allow ourselves to be goaded by people in advocacy, which in any other field would be called lobbying, into trying to ignore the fact that we have equivalent levels of homelessness, which is an incredible human tragedy, to every other major country in Europe. It’s normal,” he said.
“By trying to distort ourselves into saying that we are somehow or other, as a government, not doing anything about this, or not doing enough about it, or not doing as much as can be done, that’s what’s causing resources to go to the wrong place,” he said.
This, he claimed, is “what’s causing us to have a country that spends €152 million of your money every year on charities that deal with homelessness”.
Allen and a number of officials working within the NGO sector, as well as opposition politicians and others took issue with Skehan’s comments and criticised them heavily.
Speaking yesterday, Allen said that what Skehan was saying was to people was that homelessness was something that people shouldn’t “get too worked up about it”.
“That we should just say, ‘well homelessness is one of those things we wouldn’t really want to get too worked up about it’,” he said.
“And people like myself and Focus Ireland who are saying let’s take it seriously. We obviously goad him, as he says, upset him a lot.
“He’s opening a very important discussion for us right now in Irish society and he’s right to say it is about our values.
“But we have very different values than he has. We believe that what’s happening… is that homelessness isn’t just something that’s happening to people over there that we can ignore.
It’s completely bound up with the high rents that people are facing, young people not being able to buy homes or rent homes, people facing mortgage arrears… It’s all part of it.
Emergency accommodation figures for November, the latest available figures, show that there were 9,968 people living in homeless accommodation that month, an increase of 244 people on October’s figures.
Meanwhile, the number of people sleeping rough in Dublin has increased to 156, according to the latest Rough Sleeper Count, which was published last month.
With reporting from Hayley Halpin
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I’ll never go back to an office full time. What was I thinking spending 90 minutes stuck in city traffic one way in, working a full day, sometimes having to stay late, only to spend 90 minutes in traffic on the way back home.
It added unnecessary stress to my life that was deemed ‘normal’. I refuse to go back to that way of living.
@Madra: completely agree.. why sit in traffic when you can use that time to work at your desk at home and even go for a little run before work. Going for a run or sitting in your car for 1 hour 20 think I know what I’d chose.
@Madra: At least this pandemy at this merit, having time to think and reflect about things you put in the back in your mind otherwise.
Ideally I’d love 4 days from home and 1 in the office but i’d take 3 days at home and 2 in the office
As long as it doesn’t have leading questions to get the ‘people want to go back to the office’ view like some other reports and surveys ran around the place recently have gone with. It has to be remembered that this hasn’t been a ‘WFH Experiment’ experience it has been a ‘WFH during a Pandemic’ one. Previous surveys all seemed to focus on the social aspect of working in an office which people then latched onto as being ‘the thing they missed’ – without any survey factoring in that nobody can do anything social at the minute. It would be fantastic if the ‘experiment’ went on for six months once things opened up again and then the surveys were put out.
If I could maybe get blended where I’m doing WFH Friday’s and Monday’s and then in the office Tuesday to Thursday’s, like in my old job I’ll happily take that. I simply don’t have a permanent office or work area set up for WFH on a full-time basis, even now its a pain most days to get screens and connections for the laptop set up on the living room table every morning and then take it all away every evening to eat. Plus to be honest, I am sick to the back teeth of poxy zoom and video calls, the novelty was fine for a few months last year, but once we had to do any kind of team training etc, it’s not as effective as being able to ask questions in person…..but everyone will have a different story or opinion on WFH I guess
@Tarraing Mo Liathróidí: Why not set up a home office in your back garden?
@Locojoe: other than the garage, which is already full, there is nowhere practical without me spending a fair amount of money i don’t have to do it, and to be honest I miss seeing actual work mates in person and going to lunch with people instead of sitting on my own doing it via zoom
Cant wait to get back to the office! Big desk, multiple monitors, task chair, coffee, snacks on tap, free lunch, socializing.
@Z Exotic: Most of us have to pay for our lunches & snacks so it’s not that exciting to us.
Like a lot of things in life there are good bits and bad bits of WFH, for me, the good bits of WFH far outweigh the bad bits, by a considerable margin.
As a working mother with young kids I hope that I can wfh at least 60 percent of the time. Not having to pay for afterschool means I’m actually earning a wage, my kids are happier to be home after school, I can drop them and pick them up. When they are sick I’m not scrambling around trying to find someone to mind them or take off work using annual leave where my colleagues have to take on my work.
@Bleurgh: Not have a go at you personally, but isn’t this one of the issues with WFH from an employer perspective ? They are paying for time at the desk, not time spent babysitting, tending to sick kids, etc. I get that most people would be able to juggle the work and household stuff, but it’s bound to have an impact.
I did not have the option of working from home. But I’d welcome the opportunity to try a 4 day week.
have your say