Scarce resources - Time for hard choices

It can hardly be a mark of a civilised society, no matter how difficult our circumstances, that more than 800 children, some barely more than toddlers, are forced to act as unpaid family carers due to the State’s inability to support an alternative arrangement.

The crisis is detailed in the Department of Children and Youth Affairs’ latest State of the Nation Children’s Report. It, and the news that 33 homeless people died on the streets of either Dublin or Cork last year, suggests that we need to have a conversation about what we regard as life-or-death State services and services that are merely important.

It may be time to be firm with some of the shrill lobby groups demanding scare resources for lifestyle issues rather than essential, life-or death services.