Greg Daly
Leading homeless campaigners have welcomed the prospect of the creation of a cabinet minister with sole responsibility for housing in the next government, but have cautioned that such a move would be “lip service” if introduced in isolation.
“If there’s a cabinet minister and that’s all, then that would be window dressing,” Focus Ireland’s Mike Allen told The Irish Catholic, agreeing that such a move would merely be paying lip service to the current crisis.
Cabinet
As well as a proper staff team, such a minister would also need real leverage in the cabinet, Mr Allen added. “The nature of homelessness is that it’s about the interaction of a whole range of different departments,” he said, citing the Department of Social Protection’s failure to increase rent allowances. “A stronger cabinet commitment to ending homelessness is also part of the picture,” he said.
Tony Geoghegan of Merchant’s Quay Ireland agreed, telling The Irish Catholic that “having a minister for housing is an indication that the Government is paying serious attention, but there’s no point in having a minister for housing that is only a titular role.”
Complexity
Stressing the complexity of the homelessness problem, Mr Geoghegan said emergency accommodation was the immediate priority, but a medium term solution would entail working in concert on such measures as “modular housing, other housing types, bringing old stock back into circulation, addressing the rental cap, and addressing evictions”.
An effective minister would need a team to do this, this said, and “could hold people accountable to do it”.
