The electorate has, or at least a very significant proportion of it, again shown it has a greater appetite for change, a greater appreciation of the urgent need to reorder fundamentals than too many politicians.

Cork City Council is to impose vacant site fines to try to stimulate building. Fines will be levied at 7% of site value as the ceiling was more than doubled by Government last year.

Former Lord Mayor of Dublin, independent councillor Niall Ring has accused the Taoiseach of politicising the tragic circumstances in which a homeless man was seriously injured when his tent was lifted by Waterways Ireland.

The Lord Mayor and Dublin City Council are paying tribute to Jim Gavin for his contribution to public life and service to his county and country both on and off the pitch.

Independent county councillor Mary Linehan-Foley hasproposed that Bessborough, formerly a mother and baby home in Cork, be bought by the Government rather than allow it fall into the hands of private developers.

Caring professionals, not just billionaires, should be valued according to President Michael D Higgins.

"I met Peter when I was 10 years of age. I was homeless and Peter asked me one day what I was doing walking around Summerhill all day."

The Housing Minister has defended the government’s Rebuilding Ireland plan and insists that a large state-owned site in Cork, which has lain vacant for years, is being considered for housing.

The Government must concede that its strategy to reduce homelessness is not working, according to leading campaigner Fr Peter McVerry.

Two subjects have dominated these columns for a number of years and will for some to come.

Ireland has had four housing ministers since March 2011.

The number of homeless people in Ireland has remained above the 10,000 mark for the seventh consecutive month.

It was hard not to groan at the news that a plan to build almost 300 homes in the Dublin suburb of Glasnevin has been turned down by the planning board.

Fine Gael might dismiss The Sunday Times poll that put the party on 23%, five points behind Fianna Fáil, as a consequence of being in government for almost a decade but that would be a grave error of judgement.

New legislation is planned to prevent landlords from evicting long-term tenants without a clear reason.

Harvey Norman’s staff and customers worked together and have raised funds to kit out 20 new homes for those experiencing homelessness.

Somewhere in the bowls of Government Buildings, this week or next, a committee made up of second-tier bureaucrats, maybe a theatre consultant too, will meet to update preparations for the events scheduled to mark this Republic’s looming foundation centenaries.

Homeless campaigner Fr Peter McVerry says that figures for the homeless are closer to 15,000, but that the actual figure is "irrelevant" because the trend is “going up and up and up.”

The ongoing, possibly escalating, housing crisis is a symptom of failed government policies, particularly the decision to stop building social housing and to rely instead on the whims of the market, developers, and financiers.

And they are not finished yet.

What a joy it is, how uplifting it is that Focus Ireland can report that 95% of the people it supported last year were still in their homes six months after disengaging from the charity’s services. Positive intervention works.

In recent days, up to 10,000 people took part in a protest over the housing outside Leinster House. In a country with 10,000 — and rising — homeless people and tens of thousands more living close to the life of an indentured servant because housing prices are utterly disconnected to incomes, that protest is inevitable. In a country where tens of thousands of workers are condemned to a lifetime of making landlords’ and vulture funds’ investments pay off, those protests can only grow.

The Government saw off a motion of no confidence against Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy by 59 votes to 49, with 29 TDs abstaining

It is unfair to blame the Pope for the historical treatment of children in all Western societies, writes Victoria White

No criminal charges will be brought in relation to the death of a 24-year-old man shot dead in a case of mistaken identity.

Fr Peter McVerry, in a stark indictment of us all, warned yesterday that “an avalanche of homelessness is coming.”

Dublin's Lord Mayor has confirmed some homeless families will have to be moved out of their emergency accommodation during the Pope's visit.

Residents of a Cork city apartment block facing eviction by a vulture fund have called on Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy to introduce legislation to block mass evictions.

Groups working at the coalface of the drugs problem are to lead calls today and tomorrow, in Dublin and Cork, for the decriminalisation of drug possession.

The first homeless liaison nurse at one of the country’s busiest hospitals says that half of the homeless people who attended the emergency department in the first four months of this year left before they received full treatment.

A chronic Dublin drug addict described as “the black sheep of his family” who carried out a string of robberies of bookies shops has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

Leo Varadkar has been forced to admit the worsening homelessness crisis is a national “emergency” as campaigners rounded on the Government’s policies which have left 10,000 people without homes.

Louth County Council is leading the way in reusing empty buildings for social housing and other local authorities should follow their example, Fr Peter McVerry has urged.

Ireland’s spiralling rental crisis is failing to be addressed because one in every five TDs are landlords and have a clear conflict of interest on the issue, campaigners have warned.

Housing Agency chairman Conor Skehan is facing fresh calls to resign immediately after defending his claims some homeless people are “gaming the system” and that record Irish homeless rates are “normal” by international standards.

Philly McMahon has been a powerful voice for societal change when it comes to drugs but the Dublin defender has no intention of transferring those views to the political arena for now.

Songwriter Glen Hansard has accused the Government of behaving like Donald Trump in its handling of the homeless crisis.

There will be a national day of action on homelessness on Saturday, April 7, which will see wide-scale protests to highlight the crisis.

A homeless protest concert is being organised on the streets outside the Dáil this week.