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The local action group giving Dublin City Council the signed petition earlier. Fairness For D8 Young People via Facebook

Petition to prevent homeless centre moving next to children's sports club

The Peter McVerry Trust is set to open an emergency homeless centre in the area in place of a safe place for young, homeless people.

A LOCAL COMMUNITY action group in Dublin 8 has delivered a petition to Dublin City Council signed be locals calling for a decision on the placement of a new homeless centre to be reversed.

The Peter McVerry Trust is set to open an emergency homeless centre in the area in place of St Catherine’s Foyer, Marrowbone Lane – a safe place for young, homeless people at risk.

The new homeless centre will have the same entrance as a sports club used by around 300 children and dozens of locals a week.

“The problem is the new centre will take anyone in,” community development officer, Fintan Brunkard told TheJournal.ie. “The community were happy with and supportive of St Catherine’s Foyer, a safe place for young people, and were given assurances that nothing like this would ever happen.”

“The Peter McVerry centre won’t allow them [homeless people] to drink alcohol or drugs on the premises, so they will also go out in the surrounding area,” added Brunkard. “So it’s affecting everyone in the area… People are worried about what the area will turn into”.

According to the action group ‘Fairness for D8 Young People’ the council did not inform them of the plan to place the new emergency centre in the community centre and had planned to hand over the facility on August 20.

“We ultimately want them to reverse the decision and retain the present service,” said Brunkard.

St Catherine’s Sports and Community Centre on Marrowbone Lane, Dublin 8.

Read: Getting out of homelessness early is key says study>

More: Government commits to ending homelessness by 2016>

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114 Comments
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    Mute Barry Lynch
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    Jan 12th 2012, 5:29 PM

    Instead of just handing over a little money here and there to charities, why not setup a direct airline between Haiti and Ireland funded by the Irish taxpayer to help as many people as possible escape Haiti for a better life here.
    When Haitians land in Ireland, they could be granted asylum right away and given passports and PPS numbers.
    NAMA properties could be used to house them. If we run out of NAMA properties, more housing estates could be built.
    Translators could be provided to help the adults get jobs or apply for job seekers benefit if jobs are scarce, and also to schools to help teachers with their new students, who might not have adequate English.
    Also, grants could be given to people to cover their education costs if they wanted to go to university.
    The Irish government could also give them loans so that they could start their own businesses here.

    So how about it? Can we get a petition going to get the ball rolling on this?

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    Mute Conor Oneill
    Favourite Conor Oneill
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    Jan 13th 2012, 7:41 AM

    Our welfare system is already over loaded. Working people can’t support every poor person in the world. They should stay in there own countries and rebuild it.

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