We must value those who 'care' as much as those who become a billionaire - President pays tribute to Peter McVerry Trust

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

"People who talk bewilderingly about how they are about to move on to become billionaires, from being millionaires, I'm sure they're very interesting people, but the fact of the matter is, people who are actually delivering care, the social workers are important, the psychological workers [are important], the wonderful people who say: 'I'm going to give a period of my most valuable time and listen to people and allow people to talk [are important]'," said President Higgins.

He was speaking at the 40th anniversary of Peter McVerry Trust's under-18 residential service.

"People who work in this area (homelessness and social work) should be regarded as people with a very high status," the president said.

President Higgins also commented on how we are currently relating to one another in society and how "an enormous aggression" has crept in.

Some people think that it is efficient to bark at people, that you should be talking in this clipped way to show that you are in fact not going to be wasting time with people. And then there is an enormous aggression that is there at the present time.

The President also pointed out that Ireland should be defined as a republic of "vulnerabilities" where we are aware of those who are most at risk.

"I try to make the case to people [that] the only way of defining of a republic is a republic of vulnerabilities, where people know who is at risk and so forth," said President Higgins.

Also speaking at the event was Fr Peter McVerry who said that we no longer "raise an eyebrow about homelessness" and that the problem of homelessness is caused by government policy.

"When 1,000 children first of all became homeless it was an outcry, it was on the front pages of the newspapers, it was on every radio and television news programme and today we have almost 4,000 children homeless and it doesn't raise an eyebrow," he said.

We have 40,000 mortgages in arrears of more than two years coming down the road and many of those are going to repossessed and the households turfed out.

"Again government policy has to address that problem, it has to ensure those households do not become homeless. Homelessness is direct consequence of government policy," he added.

Fr McVerry likened the rise of homelessness to the spread of foot-and-mouth disease. If such a disease was continuing to increase, despite the government saying its strategies were working, they would be "laughed off the stage" said Fr McVerry.

"If we had a foot-and-mouth problem in the morning there would be huge effort to contain that and if three years later that foot-and-mouth disease was still spreading the government would be laughed off the stage if they said their policy was working.

"I would apply that to homelessness. The emperor has no clothes. The emperor does not know it. Government policy isn't working and the government has to be challenged," said Fr McVerry.

He also said that he can see no evidence of any passion to solve homelessness in Ireland.

I think homelessness is seen as a political problem and not as a human problem. It is a political issue which may affect politicians in a subsequent election, I don't see any passion there for addressing homelessness.

"I don't see any evidence of recognising that homelessness is a human tragedy for those people and families who become homeless," said Fr McVerry.

"They introduced their strategy to reduce homelessness three years ago and every single month since then homelessness has increased. How much time do government need? Three years? And increasing?" he added.