Irish Examiner View: Sad symptom of our failures

Tents on the streets of our cities illustrate the housing and homelessness crises

Building work near the tents of a homeless man in Dublin city centre. File Picture: PA

Apart from how we must quickly confront climate collapse and our role in it, there are few areas of public policy as hotly contested as how we might resolve the shameful housing and homelessness crises.

Dublin City Council CEO Owen Keegan has contributed to that debate but in a way that, as he anticipated, has provoked a strong response. He suggested that tents used by homeless people should be removed from our capital’s streets as they add to a perception that the city is “edgy”.

The city council already has a policy of removing tents, one that chimes with Mr Keegan’s position.

He suggested that homeless people should use hostels despite the fact that there is ample evidence that people sometimes feel unsafe in those settings.

Mr Keegan is of course right but maybe for the wrong reason — there should be no need for anyone, any citizen of a republic as affluent as this, to live in a tent pitched on a city street. If a proliferation of tents on our streets brings a solution to that crisis closer then that must be welcomed.

During that same interview, Mr Keegan suggested the Government should not be “actively” promoting home working. This unfortunately suggests a disconnect with today’s inevitable needs that must raise serious questions around judgment, understanding and the value of local democracy too.