Politicians should donate tax-free expenses to a homeless charity

While it is right that the abject failure of Irish governments, especially this one, to tackle homelessness should be highlighted it is also important to remember it wasn’t just the other evening the State failed one of its citizens.

Jonathan Corrie, who died almost at the gates of Leinster House, wasn’t born homeless, or with drug and alcohol problems.

However, you don’t end up in such a situation by accident and it is likely his own family background was sufficiently dysfunctional, having themselves been failed by the State, to provide the support framework within which they could raise a child to be emotionally strong enough to deal with the genetic burden of addiction.

Nor it seems did Mr Corrie ever receive such support.

People don’t grow up to be dysfunctional by accident, no more than they grow up to be emotional mature and capable.

We can but hope Mr Corrie’s loved ones can take some comfort in the fact he must now be at peace and that if there is a God, then he will have embraced Mr Corrie at the gates of heaven.

But that must not absolve us of the shame that a death like his can take place anywhere in Ireland in 2014. We hear talk about long term plans to address homelessness but can it really be beyond the wit of our well-fed and overpaid Ministers and their myriad of advisers, to find locations where even suitable pre-fab accommodation can be installed.

That at the very least provides access to all the services and facilities for homeless people, be they street homeless or any of the myriad of family units left homeless, due to the brutal policies of Fine Gael and Labour using the money the State generates to prioritise protecting the well-off at the expense of those most marginalised.

Locations that are clean, safe and suitable where they can at least have time to think while longer term solutions are put in place. Solving the emotional needs of some of these people will not be done overnight but providing for their physical needs can be solved overnight by this government at the stroke of a pen.

If Enda Kenny’s government cannot even solve a problem as demanding of humanity like homelessness, then he truly is unfit to be Taoiseach.

Perhaps a starting gesture to provide funding for the charities who do the government’s work could be for every single TD, Senator, Councillor and MEP to donate all of the tax free unverified expenses, every one of them claims for the month of December, to a homeless charity.

Desmond FitzGerald

Canary Wharf

London