Homelessness crisis - Minister for Commonsense?

The death of a homeless man within shouting distance of Leinster House illustrates how ill-conceived legislation can affect the powerless.

When, in January 2013, the Government put in place regulations that effectively introduced a ban on bedsits, they did so with little concern for tenants. While supporting moves to improve private rental accommodation, Focus Ireland pointed out that a “significant number of vulnerable tenants will find it difficult to find alternative affordable accommodation and run the risk of becoming homeless”.

Sadly, they have been proved right. Unlike many of our European neighbours, we rush headlong into implementing all sorts of EU laws in a blunt manner that largely ignores its effects.

Everything from accommodation to food production has been hit. Ballymaloe’s Myrtle Allen, who single-handedly reinvented Irish cuisine, once pointed that she could not have set up her concern in modern times. Health and safety rules would prevent her from operating from her kitchen and she would have had to invest in industrial equipment.

Why is it that you can’t rent a bedsit in Ireland but can rent a ‘studio apartment’ — the same thing — in almost any other EU state?

Could we please have a Minister For Commonsense appointed, or is that too much to ask?