Homeless man’s death turns spotlight on Dáil

The Dáil has been accused of repeatedly failing to address Ireland’s homeless crisis until the issue came to its doorstep, after a middle-aged man was found dead in the shadow of Leinster House.

Jonathan Corrie, a 43-year-old father from Co Carlow, was found yesterday morning just metres from the gates of the political establishment which campaigners say has repeatedly ignored the issue.

Mr Corrie is understood to have run away from home at the age of 13 and had been in and out of emergency accommodation during the subsequent years.

He had recently lived for short periods in a number of hostels in Co Kilkenny and on North Circular Road in Dublin city.

Mr Corrie had been booked into a Simon Community hostel last week but declined the help. He was found by a man walking to work at 6.45am on a doorway on the plush Molesworth Road, less than 20 metres from the Dáil, directly opposite the political haunt, Buswells Hotel, and close to the nearby Norwegian embassy and the European Parliament Information Office.

The area is also the subject of nightly TV reports, with a TV3 documentary on homelessness earlier this year seeing one reporter sleep rough for the night on almost the same spot where Mr Corrie died.

People before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said the case “symbolises in the most terrible way the failure of government to mount an emergency response”.

He is organising a candlelit vigil at 5.30pm today where Mr Corrie died, and is one of a number of TDs calling for an emergency debate on Ireland’s homelessness crisis.

Dublin lord mayor Christy Burke added that when “a man, woman or child dies outside parliament due to homelessness it is automatically a national disgrace”.

However, groups like the Simon Community and Focus Ireland noted governments of all hues have repeatedly failed to address the issue.

The number of people sleeping rough in Dublin has surged by 20% in a year, with 168 expected to be on the streets this Christmas — three times higher than when records began in 2007.