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AUNTS, SONS, FRIENDS, daughters, mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers.
At least 15 homeless people have been reported dead in Ireland over the last seven months.
These people came from all walks of life and died by different means in different places.
What unites them is the fact that they were homeless.
From last August up until this week, reports of homeless people dying have piled up at a pace of at least two a month.
The number of 15 is almost certainly far higher. In response to questions in the Dáil back in November, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that “between 40 and 50 homeless people die every year”.
“Each one is a tragedy and very sad,” he said.
People who are homeless die for all sorts of different reasons, whether physical health, overdose, addiction, mental health issues, suicide, or violence on some occasions.
Varadkar said that the range of ways that people die points to homelessness being “such a complex social issue”.
But while homelessness is a complex, hard-to-define issue that affects a wide cohort of people, one thing is clear – it’s rising hugely in Ireland.
Child homelessness has more than quadrupled in four years, adult homelessness has doubled. There are now more homeless people than at any time in the state’s recent history.
Those who have died have been mothers who ended their life; sisters who died on the streets; sons who died in emergency rooms; brothers who died in tents and many others.
Two men who were homeless have died in recent months in Cork city. They were known well to people working in homelessness services in the city, they had friends and families who loved them dearly. The men knew each other well and were friends.
Here are their stories.
Paul Sheehan (53)
Paul Sheehan (53) was found dead at Wandesford Quay in Cork city in the early hours of Sunday morning, 18 March.
Paul was from the city and had been in and out of homelessness for much of his adult life. He had a serious addiction to alcohol.
Paul came from a large family. He was the youngest of 12 children, with his father dying when he was young and his mother raising the children after that alone.
His brother Gerard remembers the family’s childhood as a happy one, with the siblings very close growing up.
“There wasn’t much between us in years and we were all very close. We were happy – we had a mother who did absolutely everything for us,” he tells TheJournal.ie.
Gerard says that Paul started drinking very early in his life, and became addicted to alcohol when he was a teenager.
“And that was it. But we never lost Paul because he stayed the same person – he was still kind, respectful and loving and sometimes he could be very happy,” he says.
Gerard and Paul’s other brother Anthony always kept in touch with him throughout the years; they were always there for him and tried to help him many times.
“In his early 20s he was in a relationship with a woman (Rita) in Mallow. He was with her for a couple of years and he was happy – he was very happy,” he says.
The couple had a son. This was about 20 years ago, Gerard says.
Rita died suddenly after the couple had been together a few years. Rita’s family took the kids into their care.
“He was completely devastated. He went really downhill then and went back on the street,” says Gerard.
He says that his brother tried to never ask for help.
“He would never ask for anything off anyone. All he wanted to do was just go walking and drinking,” he says.
Over the last 15 years, Gerard and the rest of Paul’s family had tried repeatedly to get him to seek help.
“He did try. He went to four treatment centres over the years,” says Gerard.
But one thing I know about Paul was what drink took from his was his self-worth and self-esteem.
As the years progressed Paul got worse, but Gerard says he was “still the same Paul. Still loving, kind, respectful”.
About four-and-a-half years ago Gerard got a phone call from gardaí to say that Paul was in with them. He had done nothing wrong, Gerard says, but the gardaí were worried about him.
“We went and we brought him home… and he went up to bed and went asleep,” says Gerard.
“I used to go deep with him, you know? He could tell me anything. We talked about everything.
“So he decided to go into treatment and I went down every Friday night to see him. We had a flat got ready for him and everything for when he finished his programme and it was going well.
“Then the last Friday night I went down and he wasn’t there. He had finished his programme and gone straight back to the city.
That was the life he wanted… It gets very sad after that.
The final years
Gerard and the rest of the family still tried to help Paul, but he went “off the radar” for a while. They found him in an old house he had been living in with a friend for three years, before his friend had died.
Paul could only walk with the help of two sticks at this point. He was admitted to hospital last September and kept there for three months.
At the time, Paul and Gerard’s sister Martina was also in a different hospital with severe cancer.
“I can’t pay tribute to Paul without paying tribute to our baby sister Martina,” says Gerard.
Our baby sister was ill at the time and she and Paul were very close… They loved each other and she carried the fact that her brother had been on the streets a lot of his life.
Martina died in October. Paul didn’t feel as though he could go to the funeral.
Paul was later discharged from the hospital, but the family were very worried about him at this point.
“We could still talk and have a laugh though,” says Gerard.
“We sat on the couch once near the end and he said to me, ‘Gerard, I love you’ and I gave him a hug and said, ‘I love you Paul’.
Hugs would have been kind of scarce in my family… but that was nice.
Gerard became Paul’s agent. He would collect his social welfare payments and checked up on his brother regularly. Paul was admitted to hospital again as his condition deteriorated.
He was discharged from hospital. Soon after – in the early hours of 18 March – his body was found.
“I was with him on Friday morning, and Anthony went looking for him the next night and couldn’t find him,” he says.
They later heard that their brother had died.
“Anthony went over and I said it’s a bad sight like – him lying there and a blue blanket thrown over him,” says Gerard.
We went down soon after and met the funeral director and we said we’ll have the exact same as Martina, the exact same – and that’s what he had.
“He was loved”
Caitriona Twomey – who runs the soup kitchen Cork Penny Dinners in the city – knew Paul and his family well from them coming in.
“There had been so much pain in his life, but his family were very good to him. He was loved, he was loved, ” she told TheJournal.ie.
Gerard says that it’s important to remember Paul as a kind person who was sick and who was loved dearly by his family.
“We talk about choices and lifestyle choices, but we have to start off at being human beings and if we can start there, there’s some chance for us,” he says.
“Paul was so much addicted to alcohol that he had no choices really – alcohol had him from a very young age.
But we made sure he knew he was loved and who loved him. Always.
“Dublin” John (52)
A friend of Paul’s, John (known by many as “Dublin John”) was originally from Dublin but had been living in Cork for the past 11 years.
He was well-known to homelessness services in the city and as well as receiving help and support, was a regular volunteer at the Cork Penny Dinners soup kitchen.
John stayed sometimes at the Cork Simon emergency hostel but also slept on the streets. He had problems with alcohol abuse, and had been through a lot of trauma in his life.
He died in the Mercy Hospital in Cork in January after having a seizure.
TheJournal.ie visited Cork Penny Dinners on a rainy weekday in November 2016 as part of a series looking into homelessness outside of Dublin.
John was helping out in the soup kitchen the day we visited, and he talked about his past and his life on the street.
From the article:
“I’m down here 10 years. I buried my bird down here,” John told TheJournal.ie at the time.
“Dublin is worse than this. Cork is bad now and it’s getting worse.
When I first came down it wasn’t as bad and now it’s gradually, slowly getting worse. Homelessness, drugs, killings.
When asked about life staying in the hostel and on the street, John said:
You just get on with it. Forget about it.
Caitriona Twomey said that John was a dear friend who was loved and that his death came as a blow.
“We’re devastated here. John was loved by everyone here. He was a real character,” she said this week.
“Everyone knew him. My own grandchildren – my youngest is 16 and she met him when she was five. She was very upset.
We’re going to have a Mass in the Holy Trinity Church for him on Saturday because it was his church. He was loved, he was loved.
Twomey says that all the volunteers and staff are mourning the two men who had died.
She said that homelessness continues to worsen, and that as it gets worse people will continue to die.
“We’ve lost five in four months which is huge for Cork. The was unheard of a few years ago,” she said.
And there will be more. Life is getting harder. The services that are in place are stretched and if you’re stretching the services what are you doing?
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It has always puzzled me how politicians cannot be fired for lying – how is it possible to roll back 100% on election promises? I think this behaviour negatively impact society – normalising lying across all parts of society and business
@Brian Maher: Fat Rabbit explained that very well on TV one night.
@Brian Maher: They can. If people don’t vote for them in the next election. If people keep voting the same people back in nothing changes
@Brian Maher: Then we wonder why people won’t vote , the politicians can promise anything now knowing that they can actually do the opposite of what they promised with no consequences to them. Democracy is a joke to these politicians.
Headline should read why haven’t they got rid of usc yet !!
@S lloyd: Remind me again what we allegedly get from paying the USC tax? It’s an effin joke.
@Suzanne Dorgan: Working folks get nothing. The welfare brigade get heavily subsidised housing, free in fact as they use their dole to pay for it, free medical care, electricity allowance, fuel allowance, phone allowance, Christmas bonus, the list is endless. That’s where your USC goes.
@R Farrell: You seem to forget that we are still paying off Unsecured Bondholders Loans, Bankers Debt, IMF loans, Government ineptitude (Broadband plan, The Childrens Hospital Fiasco, Irish Water, Nama, etc) the list goes on for the past 11 years to the tune of 64 Billion or more. But still, you blame those on Welfare. Here’s a hint….’blame the guys in suits’.
@S lloyd: the USC was a tax that every single person paid – but not the usual scroungers pay F all and get everything for nothing
@Niall: Just like the bankers so but you probably bow down to their greatness.
@Bobby Moore: and dont forget if you went to the bother of buying a house, theres a tax on that too. People should read up about switzerland and how their home tax went from a couple hundread a year like ours to now its based on the potential rental rate of your property.
@R Farrell: Unemployment rate is down to 4.4% is 108,200 persons.
.The ‘welfare brigade’ are mainly those on pensions,on illness, disability &caring incomes,child related payments,working age employment supports,working age income supports,etc total beneficiaries of Social Welfare benefits in Ireland was 3,323,690 persons!(Table A4 : Annual Statistical Report 2018 Social Welfare.’)
There are now 2.28m people in employment in Ireland.Last year on 1/8/18 Revenue published data on individualised gross income which showed 1.77m persons on incomes €30,000& under.So social and affordable housing stock needed! Working people live in social housing too + elderly+disabled,etc.
Welfare Expenditure comes from 54.6% of Exchequer funding plus 45.4% from Social Insurance Fund(financed by PRSI contributions from employers (73%), employees (21.6%)&self employed (5.3%)
The USC is a tax paid directly to Exchequer.
@Nuala Mc Namara: Facts don’t matter to the likes of him Nuala. He has a job to do for Leo. The job is to keep banging the look over there division drum.
@Dave Doyle: I’m a female nurse Dave. You’re the stereotype expat, bitter, disenfranchised that you couldn’t make it work back here. Stay where you are, we’ve enough washed out looking Steven Seagal guys here banging your drum of poor me.
@R Farrell: Private hospital I hope, would hate to think you would have to deal with people inferior to you.
@G Row: Public A&E. We spend roughly 80% of our time dealing with drug & alcohol related injuries, of this probably 90% have medical cards & are on welfare. We’re the one’s who are inferior to those ‘too good to work’ and expect everything to be given to them for free.
@R Farrell: Move to private you will feel much better about yourself.
@R Farrell: Very successful at work in Ireland. From tenement to social housing to owning my own home there. Two sons, one with a degree from Trinity in History, a masters in economics from the UNSW. The other son a fully qualified aircraft engineer (avionics) for a major airline. I have a lifestyle here you can only dream about. Own my home here, no mortgage, no loans. I’ve nothing to be bitter about. No poor me’s. I hate what FG have done to the people of Ireland, the division FG survive on. The likes of you, in your ignorance, continually on here danging Leo’s division drum.
@G Row: I was thinking the same. The hatred she spouts here constantly about the “welfare brigade” . To think she works in a profession that is supposed to help people no matter who they are is worrying. A nurse who looks down her nose at the less well off and judges them?
@R Farrell: I’ve never heard a nurse talking about her patients in such a disgraceful manner.Research data published May last year which examined ALL 29 Emergency Departments in Ireland found that alcohol was a factor in 5.9% of attendances during week (which contradicts your assertion!)although it did rise to 1/3of all attendances on Saturday night/Sunday morning.
You usually negatively comment on welfare (despite unemployment rate 4.4%& total beneficiaries of welfare in Ireland is 3,324,690 people!!)and homeless “wanting houses next to mammy” despite Government own data showing that 82.4% on social housing waiting lists have no specific accommodation requirements, majority of rest need accommodation to suit specific needs eg disability!.
You never though seem to comment on the failing Government policies re National emergencies in homelessness, housing and health!
@Nuala Mc Namara: Well said Nuala.
I know these things are different depending on how much you get paid but PRSI is about 5% of my wages and USC another 5, what are they going to do? Bump PRSI to 9.5% and then claim they are abolishing the USC? They have their hand snugly in our pockets with the USC, they won’t be taking it out any time soon
@Fenster: regardless of how much you get paid you only pay 4% employee prsi. There is no 5% rate of prsi. Also with the system of usc in place with different rate bands and increased rates for higher earnings, in order to be paying an average of 5% usc on your wages you would be earning a minimum of € 104,000 gross per year. More than double the average industrial wage. Just saying.
How can anyone expect any different. FG love soundbites, they lie, it’s what they do best. They will say and promise anything that sounds like what people want to hear. Then have a laugh at the people’s expense while ignoring all they said and promised.
That’s the FG way.
@Dave Doyle: Pretty sure they learned everything they know from FF. Labour much more blatant about it. Sick.
Votes mean nothing. Whether you vote for who you think is right or not.
Politicians, for the most part, lie to get elected, once elected, its gravity train all the way to pension time.
Politicians don’t undo taxes, VRT used to be the hot topic. USC isn’t going anywhere.
@vfagan: sounds about right – it is funny how it didn’t take too much time to introduce and roll out USC and arrange to efficiently collect hundreds of millions of euro in no time….have had years to make any adjustments….but get spun this horsesh*t that it takes time.
I like simple, the USC was brought in to repay the bank debt, so we should not have to merge it. Once that value has been collected via USC it should just be stopped. But now it’s just more tax, this is why it’s complex. Because they are taking it as income..
@David Kearney: Just another 51 years or so of the USC as Ireland’s on the books debt is north of €200 billion. Inflation over the coming years and selling what’s left of the countries silverware might knock a decade off!
Brian Lenihan really screwed us all over
Sadly, our politicians are nothing more than a bunch of incompetent amateurs making themselves millionaires in the dail and doing nothing for the country. This is why they can’t get rid of taxes like the USC, and they need more taxes (in the guise of carbon taxes) for brexit.
We’re paying a very heavy price for electing these grossly inconpetent politicians. More capable politicians wouldn’t cost the country as much. And then adding insult to injury, they’re paying themselves unjustifiable amounts of money, making themselves wealthy millionaires while they’re there.
With 2 billion hospital and 3 billion broadband, these horrendously poor politicians are proving very costly for the state. Even just replacing harris could save the country billions in hospital overruns and botched tests and whatever else we don’t hear about.
@Adrian:
Never fear. The obvious solution is to double a TD’s salary to “attract the right talent”. Simples.
@Kevin: its a massive pity and its proving disasterous for the country that the gombeen FFG voters who cannot see outside their own parish, they cannot comprehend the damage these guys are doing on a national level costing the country billions.
Pat rabbitte said it perfectly…….politicians lie to the electorate to gst get elected, and in the case of the FFG cartel, they can lie, lie and lie again, and the gullible masses will still vote them in, while the likes of Pascal the plank and the rest roll out the its complicated reasons for not merging prsi and the usc. And like good little seals ths FFG supporters will just stand there and clap…….you lot get what you voted for
Cronies….get them all out
I really suspect the real reason they did not proceed to amalgamate the two deductions from our income as a single deduction is that we would rightly be horrified by the rather large significant amount being taken, it would scream injustice from your payslip and shock the poor sod who thought he was earning a fair wage with the prospect of managing his own money only to find the government were leaving him the crumbs after their deductions, to add insult to injury,the pittance is then subjected to all their indirect taxes which are set to increase, and Paschal will smile like a cheshire cat as he delivers how we are being taken to the cleaners.
@Honeybee: Is it not the role of the opposition to highlight inadequacies of Government?
@Shakka1244: what opposition?
@Shakka1244: What opposition ? are they not all together as one. It is so discouraging that if a general election took place tomorrow, the alignment of the parties would still be the same. It is awful to have a hundred years of tweedledee and tweedledum in government but to think we can have no hope of change is so much worse,a hundred years of lies and what makes it even worse is knowing as we were lied to that they didn’t think we were worth the truth .
USC…. literally robbing us. Big thanks to FF for crashing the country and a big shout out to FG for destroying what was left.
For “it’s complex” read “we couldn’t be assed”! Took three weeks to prepare CAB legislation , so why not do it?
And on the other hand, they are not awarding the NBP (Broadband Plan) to Eir as they are SO concerned that people will have to pay an few pound (€70) to connect their house should they go with Eir’s last minute proposal. Fleesing our pockets in one way, and wasting 2 billion to make sure people save €70. Somone call an election!
@Gerard O’Sullivan: The Dinny deal has been done. FFG won’t dare upset their boss.
People keep allow this this type of additional taxation to happen, just look at your insurance , still paying for PMPA, Quinn, uninsured drivers, failed company’s, then look at your power bill public obligation charge, and the list goes on, ever time there is a financial issue they simply dump onto the tax payer, then they will increase there own wages to cover the cost. The people need to take a stand on type of behavior by Governments
Give me back my USC ye shower of lying gowls
Doherty is great…but we cannot run the country on air….or ride to work on his beautiful unicorns….the country costs money to run and somebody had to pay tax….please God some day SF can get into government and run the country properly….like they used to in NI before the money started to dry up and real adult supervision was require….
@Paul: his point is fg said they’d abolish usc and they havent, he’s not saying it should be abolished
@Paul: Pearse Doherty asked Minister questions and found out no concrete plan to amalgamate USC&PRSI.USC brings in €3.9B a year.
Pearse said “Imagine if we had a €3.9B hole in Budget facing Brexit&all the other uncertainties we are familiar with from the Fiscal Council &other Reports.”.So you’re completely wrong!
Next time read the article properly!
@Paul: As he said, another clapping seal.
We have been properly screwed by FFG. We should keep voting them in and test if a leopard can really change it’s spots. While we are testing this theorem, waste, cronyism and lies will be delivered until we, the stupid electorate, realise that no, a leopard does not change it’s spots.
You’re just a number for money-taking exercises. You can not get ahead in this country. It’s impossible.
I have absolutely no problem paying USC or PRSI and would gladly pay more if it was used to find our health system , education system , housing cisis etc. Instead our taxes pay off the debts of gambling banks and the crazy salaries and pensions of incompetent politicians
Laughable shower of Gangster in that Leinster house ! Merge the two .WTF USC was brought in as a austerity measure with promises that it would be removed when we are rolling again . Sure why would they not keep doing what there doing when people still actually vote these liars in . No different than the guy robbing the bank just far more sneakier .
“It is too complex” basically he just said you are too stupid to understand and can’t be bothered to explain it to you… or he actually doesn’t know how to do it.
This is a finna fail tax. I’ll never vote for FF ever. It also amazes me how now that we are paying USC that it now pays for ‘things’ that were already in place and stopping it means we cant have those ‘things’ . Horse shit
@fergalmoore: It’s to assist with the €6 Billion interest repayments for the bailout loan that nobody ever talks about. The loan our grandchildren will still be paying.
Its amazing that the Irish taxpayer hasn’t revolted about having to pay for the excesses
of Celtic Tiger builders & their aiding ab=nd abetting Banksters & politicians.
Solution:
-raise corporate tax to 17.5%
-abolish income splitting by the middle class professionals
-abolish the USC
-reduce Vat to 20%
-abolish TV licences
-reduce car tax to E20/year for cars of lss that 120G/Klm CO2.
-remove property tax from the family house valued less that E500K
FG in lying shocker !!!
USC should have been scrapped long ago.Its suchba pity we as a nation let all these things happen without putting up any sorta fight
Varadkar just lies lies and lies he’s worst than Trump
USC another tax money to put into there own pockets the government is nothing but conmen and robbing gits
It is not complex for us to vote for an alternative government, one which will roll back the lifetime cuts to our privately funded pensions, the USC, & reform the property tax to base it on living space rather than on local valuation. The most inequitable government in the states history will be binned to restore fairness to those who got up early for decades past, & paid taxes to build the social housing in the fifties- nineties.
It wasn’t complex for them to put pay & pension restoration in train for public servants, including themselves, nor to raid our pension funds in the first place.
It will rain P45s in the next general election, fool us twice rule will apply.
Well as long as the id&%t Irish keep them in power, the longer they will be ridden. It’s basic math’s.
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