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TWO KEY ORGANISATIONS working on the frontline of the housing crisis have criticised Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy, claiming they have been unable to get a meeting with him to discuss solutions.
On 8 September, the minister held a summit with the heads of 31 local authorities to discuss the crisis. A number of measures were announced, including the establishment of a homeless inter-agency group, a further €10 million in funding for family hubs and 200 additional emergency beds for Dublin.
On the day of the summit, Anthony Flynn, CEO of Inner City Helping Homeless, confronted the minister outside the Custom House, telling him his organisation had not even had “the respect of a reply” from Murphy’s office.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Flynn said ICHH has made several attempts to arrange meetings with the minister since he took over the housing brief in June and “all have been unsuccessful to the point of no reply.”
“What the minister is lacking is engagement fromfrontline services – people who are engaging with homeless people on a daily basis.”
Flynn said that over a three-month period his organisation had more than 13,000 engagements with homeless people.
For our opinion not to be taken on board when we’re dealing with such a high volume of people, he’s letting himself down.
He said his relationship with previous housing minister Simon Coveney was “strong” and described him as “reactive to the situation”.
“With each of his [Murphy's] predecessors, whether or not we agreed with them or got on with them, they listened to us,” Flynn added.
‘Disappointing’
Then on Monday, chairperson of Threshold Aideen Hayden told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland she was disappointed that her organisation – the largest charity dealing with the private rental sector -”hasn’t had the opportunity to meet the minister and share our views with him in spite of a number of requests”.
The charity’s CEO John-Mark McCafferty told TheJournal.ie that while the charity has met with department officials on “very specific things”, there has been no move towards arranging a face-to-face meeting with the man in charge.
“In those meetings [with officials] we’ve reiterated our desire to meet with the minister to convey solutions we have,” he said.
It’s private rental sector tenants who are becoming homeless. We’re not seeing the same kind of volume coming from mortgage defaults into homelessness, it’s people being priced out of the rental market. There is a high level of tenancy terminations and the lowest level of available rental units right now. And we are absolutely in the eye of the storm.
“It is very worrying that a key organisation at thecoalface, which already has a relationship with the State by virtue of being funded by it, and which provides essential services linking with vulnerable households and families, isn’t being asked for input,” he said.
McCafferty said Threshold’s focus is on preventing people from becoming homeless - something the government has said is a key part of its plan to tackle the crisis. The organisation has “evidence and insights and cases to feed into the policy-making system” that it wants to pass onto the minister.
“I’ve been in other organisations where I’ve sought meetings with the minister of the most relevant department and this is arguably the most difficult situation in terms of trying to make that breakthrough,” he said.
June Tinsley, Barnardos Head of Advocacy said the charity “hasn’t had any engagement with Minister Murphy or the department in relation to the homelessness crisis”.
This week, as part of the charity’s national collection day, it highlighted the negative impact homelessness can have on a child, with CEO Fergus Finlay, commenting that children “are being robbed of their childhoods”.
Tinsley said the charity did contribute to the formal review of the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan and included recommendations in its pre-Budget submission for addressing child homelessness.
“We would welcome any opportunity to discuss the crisis, its impact on families and children and potential solutions with the minister or the department,” she said.
‘An open ear’
Despite criticisms from some groups, other homeless charities told TheJournal.ie they are satisfied with the level of interaction they have had with the minister.
Francis Doherty, head of communications for the Peter McVerry Trust said the organisation has met with Minister Murphy on five occasions since he came to office.
“The most recent was last Thursday – Pat Doyle [the charity's CEO] met him prior to the summit with the chief executives of the local authorities.
“We’d have fairly regular interaction with his office and with the minister. He’s done some of our events and we’ve had face-to-face meetings with him. He’s given everything an open hear, he hasn’t been dismissive of any views or ways of addressing the crisis,” he said.
“Of course we always have to wait and see what they actually draw up and finalise.”
Brian O’Gorman, chief executive of Clúid Housing, also said he met the minister with a number of other housing associations the day before the summit with local authority heads.
“I am due to meet him again when he opens a new older persons housing scheme that we are completing in Cabra, Dublin City,” he said.
Focus Ireland’s director of advocacy Mike Allen said his organisation has had two meetings with Minister Murphy, which he described as “useful exchanges of views”. However, he said the charity “would welcome a more regular collaborative approach”.
The Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government tole TheJournal.ie that the minister “plans to meet with both groups [Threshold and ICHH] in the near future when diary commitments allow”.
“There are over 100 organisations and homeless charities and the minister has met with many of these already,” it told TheJournal.ie. “He also opened the review up to submissions from any organisation that wished and the department is currently working through these proposals.”
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What a ridiculous way to waste money. Repairing cars at a higher cost than replacing them. Where is the logic in that?
They cannot replace an 8 year old car with an 8 year old car this article is unfair. Although taking bikes off the road to put off the inevitable is foolish.
That could have replaced the car for 3,000? This means they would buy a used vehicle somewhere. That’s nonsense.
This article contains too much speculation (“there is a belief……”, etc.), and not enough facts.
It’s all about perception. The repairs are precieved as more cost effective than replacements.
It’s the same reason Toyota was chosen over BMW for the Garda squad car contract. BMW provided a better offer and have an impressive track record in service with police across Europe, but the Gardai couldn’t be seen spending money on “fancy” cars.
I think what they are saying that if you add the € 3000 to the cost of the repairs you would then have the cost of a new car.
How much would a new car cost the state? I have no idea how much a car minus the tax and vat etc would cost.
For some reason, VAT & VRT is paid on garda vehicles.
That is nuts!
It’s just part of the roundabout that is public finances. Have to justify paying all those number pushers. There’s absolutely no reason that any emergency service should be paying tax on anything. It just reduces their annual budget and recycles the money to the government.
That’s if it happened. Lots of this story is based on a “a source” and “it is understood”.
Andrea,
Whilst not to say ‘repair’ vs ‘replace’ would be best in every case, the decision is not quite as simple as you suggest.
You might want to factor in the fact that Ireland does not manufacture a single car. However, near all of the repair ‘costs’, typically relatively labour intensive in things like welding, prep & painting, will stay in the Irish economy, paying for badly needed Irish jobs.
In ‘macro’ economics, someone’s spending is always someone else’s income (and job). It is worth taking a moment to consider this fact & where the various elements, in what is a circular flow, end up.
‘Macro’ economics is profoundly +not+ like a household budget. What an individual household would consider a ‘waste’ of money needs to be considered very differently in the National context.
Well Mike, all that extra money spent on keeping people in a few repair jobs is reducing the overall effectiveness of our national police force which in turn results in higher crime and a knock-on effect to the economy and tourism.
There’s only a handful of mechanics directly employed by the gardaí, the vast majority of work done is by local garages on contract.
‘Fix Ireland’
Really? And the evidence for that would be where exactly?
Or is that simply your opinion (and/or that of a Garda?) – ie cognitive bias applied to what is at best a hypothetical counter-factual argument?
I hear the Garda themselves consider the recent addition/separation of a ‘Traffic Division’ to be about make-jobs & empire building to no great effect in either crime fighting or road accident statistics. Very poor value indeed when one considers the devastating effect of spending cuts in areas such as healthcare & disability relief. But I’d guess such things don’t affect you personally? Or the recession much?
And what’s this ‘extra money’? It is the ‘replace’ option that requires ‘extra’ to be spent now, with the hope of savings in the long term.
Again, there is much more to be considered than the simplistic approach.
You seem a bit sore Mike. Are you perhaps one of the mechanics who “repairs” the fleet? The extra money i am referring to is the money saved from the Garda budget by investing in quality vehicles instead patching up rust boxes. Nothing to do with health and disability but you strawman all you like.
Yes while politicans get there shiny new 2013
Joe tbh everything stated is absolutely true, and the worst part is there are cars on the road that cost multiples of a new car to keep on the road. Many cars I’m familiar with are in the garage at least once every three weeks and have major work done regularly. It’s madness but is the done thing, it would be far cheaper for divisions to have their own fleet budget, let them go to an auction pick up a Volvo or Octavia etc for feck all and just have someone on contract to mark them up and stick I’n the electronics.
Paid but the state get it back. All VAT and VRT go back to the State.
This is the third time the journal has “updated” this non-story exclusive.
Ireland is also a huge manufacturer of car parts for finished cars. We supply all the main manufacturers with high quality components. The beand owners just design the spec and put all the parts together from countries all round the world like Ireland.
Garda patrol cars replaced after 300000 kms I’ve seen a few of them up close to this and they are in flitters. Our local garda says its the way they are driven at times and that they are nearly all standard family spec cars that are not up to the job. No other police force would accept this substandard treatment. We.re not far off seeing our police force thumbing lifts to calls. Disgrace
That’s more or less already happened. There was a story on here earlier this year where a woman called the local guards to attend a burglary and he asked was there any chance she could collect him otherwise there’d be a longer wait!
That was in Donegal last year.
Time to bring back the Beatle and Morris Minor.
This is getting beyond ridiculous, are they seriously going to expect our gardai to lean their heads out the windows and shout NEE – NAW, NEE – NAW, and what of the armed response units, is the day coming when they’re expected to shout BANG! You honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see a garda pedaling a bicycle like the hammers of Hell after a couple of bank robbers.
I wouldn’t be surprised to be in hospital some day to find their monitors in the same state and some poor nurse given the job of standing behind a monitor and “beeping” to sound like a hart beat, you could just imagine Dr. Kilkenny. Nurse O’Brien he’s not looking too good, can ye not bleep a bit faster please?
So true – funny, but true! Well done!
You joke about armed gardaí shouting ‘bang’ but it was reported last week in the Indo that firearms training for all but the ERU & RSU has been severely curtailed due to cost.
There was supposed to be a Tactical Firearms Training Centre built in Templemore since 2006, but it still has not been built. It’s embarrassing, the ERU have to ask the Army Rangers for theirs every week.
Absolutely unacceptable, and not surprising in the slightest. The Gardaí have been torn a new one in the past 5 years. All other offices in the country have rigid health and safety regulations adhered to strictly for fear of fiscal retribution, not in the Gardaí. The government try to dodge having to buy new cars as old ones reach their end of life. I think the limits for replacement are 300, 000 km on a car before it’s replaced, which is pushing it as the cars used are not police specific, unlike the states or other countries.
Two ford mondeo cars based in a south Dublin division had €80,667 spent on them keeping them on the road during one full year period in 2010. That included repairs for being crashed, new clutches (4 went in one of them in a year) new gear boxes, servicing, panels resprayed, numerous shocks and springs etc going (too many speed bumps) new engines put into each and the list goes on. Oh, and one got a complete panel replacement and paint job due to small dent marks all over having being stoned by local youths.
It all add up !
BMW offered the Gardai a fantastic deal on equipping the force with vehicles, in fact the contract was more cost effective than that offered by Ford, who prove sh#te cars with little back-up and a more expensive unit price… The government said no to the BMW deal, because the public would be ‘unhappy’ over the fact Gardai would be driving BMWs, despite the fact they’d get to a scene quicker, perform in pursuits better, last longer and have a higher value after use. Unbelievable.
Gardaí have been let down by management. Safety of staff should always come first and management should be fighting their corner. They know they won’t say ‘I’m not driving that, it’s a death trap’ if someone needs their help. They will get there even at a risk to themselves. They should all hang there heads in shame. Shatter makes Dermot Ahern look like a saint.
Could they not just disable the odometer on the bikes so they wont reach the upper limit.
The Indo also reported last week that the mobile units, that were supposed to provide a counter service to those areas which have lost stations, will not now be bought due to cut backs.
Could have guessed that one alright!
Why does the President need a bike escort anyway? What does he do that is so important that he has to have all traffic moved aside just for him?
Ridiculous waste of money in the first place.
That’s what you took from that story? They also cover emergency situations such as ambulances that need an urgent escort to a hospital. Is that a waste too??
It’s a show of respect for our head of State Neil. Why treat our First Citizen as an ordinary Joe Soap? We gave to have some national pride and respect for ourselves as a nation and that includes honoring the office of President and the person who holds it. I don’t begrudge Michael D. a few motorcycles and it provides jobs
A lot of these escort duties are getting buses full of delegates through rush hour traffic while everyone else on the way home for work sits in their car. Hardly crucial.
What about the other 6 Dwarfs … ?
That’s just not nice
He actually doesn’t use them 90% percent of the time by his request, usually for formal functions like meeting foreign presidents and the rest.
Crucial are the ambulance escorts, the escorts of Explosive Ordanance Disposal Teams, the escorts of donated organs and/or blood products, maybe the transplant patient being transported to the airport to catch an air ambulance, not to mention the day to day road traffic enforcement duties carried out.
Apparently they had exhausted their fuel and maintenance budget.And had to park them up if they wanted to see the year out.
People criticised the ambulance driver that ran out of fuel last week.Perhaps it wasnt just a case of forgetting to fill it or not having time to?
Good to see that Shatters “smart policing plan” of more mobile patrols to replace closed stations is working well.
Funy enough, I was at Dublin Castle on Friday night for the bit o’culture, and passed the same bikes, all in a row looking loverly, at the back of the Coach House. Got a pitchur an’all.
Where’s Harry!!!!
He’ll be along shortly, this story will be irresistible to him
jake mansfield@ I am here did you forget your pepper spray
Were you protesting at the weekend Harry?
montys moonshine…..are you garda b334
Harry’s a proper clob
Yes Harry, that’s me, Garda Monty b334. How did you figure it out you Wiley old coot?
Blah, blah, blah. Are you a Garda, was your father a Garda, are you part of the ‘cartel’, why don’t you uphold the oath….? Get a life Price you trolling vermin.
another one of them that needs anger management treatment @ Marty Borgnine
I don’t have any Harry. Pepper sauce is the closest I get I’m afraid.
Motorcyclist deaths are on the increase, and the garda response is to get rid of motorbikes cos they’re expensive. Typically Irish…..
Oh and the bikes are Yamaha FJR’s not FR…
You beat me to it …. Was pulled by one the other day on my bike and complimented me on avoiding a collision which he avoided as well and he looked a bit flustered says he has near ones everyday and depending on bikes with high mileage .. They are FJR 1200 and great bikes
There was a model Harley Davidson tested out a few years back .. They didn’t proceed because people hassling the Garda to look at the bike !!
Yeah, That was the only reason.. nothing to do with how bad Harley’s are for maintenance..
The paramedic unit that got lumped with them are still holding onto their BMW’s just in case..
The Army has a mammoth presidential escort detail. They could fill many of the escort roles, especially those of prisoners.
They’re only an aid to the Civil Authority, no power in law to stop vehicles / control traffic! Not much use for a high speed ambulance escort into Crumlin Children’s Hospital on a busy Friday evening!
Tenner bet people would still get out of the way.
I don’t think the Army bikes have lights & sirens.
That’s not the point, if they had an accident the payouts would be astronomical as they had no power to be controlling/manipulating traffic in that way…
They do. And so do the Military Police bikes (blue paint).
Only Military Police have the necessary training, bikes and law (they have arrest powers) to carry out the role of a Garda Tango (bike escort), but the MP already have enough on their schedule (they escort DF equipment daily, as well as marches on roads, etc.), so the Garda bikes should be in action, always.
What arrest powers do they have? I think you will find little or none when it comes to the public.
Military law is very different. The Aid to the civil powers act is used in limited and well defined scenarios.
True, they can only detain civilians until Gardai arrive, so what I’m saying is the Garda bikers are the only ones capable of doing that job description.
Sure and the public would be much safer on the road for the army deals better in crowd control and hold their training to an order
Mil Police use the Deauville 700 now since they got rid of the Bandits which were unsuitable for the task. These are the same bikes used by local traffic corps and are nowhere near as effective as the FJR1300. The cavalry corps that escort Mickey D also use the Deauville 700, barring a custom green paint job and a little flag on the front cowl these are standard bikes. The Mil Police ones are now green with battenburg markings like the traffic corps. They would be grand for what the military use them for but not for high speed escorts, as they simply don’t have the acceleration and power. I ride a Deauville myself, a reliable bike but not a crotch rocket.
When was the last time you saw the army deal directly with crowd or engaged in crowd control to give such a statement.
Military police have no authority to stop non military vehicles outside the curragh camp or barracks.
What this man says is all true. A 2012 Deauville was a technical write off this year, €11k bike was repaired for €10k. If they spent 1k more on a new bike, they would also have about 5k of parts for use or sale/scrap. “We can replace men but we can’t replace bikes”
Thats Jonathan thats right btw. The army have standard (deauville) training and training for driving in formation, thats it. Any escort biker will tell you its the ambulance escorts that the big bikes are needed for. How many of these escorts were denied because the big bikes were taken off the road by a pencil pusher in a streak of genius.
MP’s only have legislative powers of arrest for military/defence forces personnel.
I heard that when a Garda car reaches a hundred thousand miles they have to be replaced.which in this day and age with better cars one hundred thousand miles is not that much to have on a car.nothing stopping them from holding on too them for another hundred thousand.
There replaced early because of the way that there driven example during a car chase the go into a roundabout in 5th gear and drop straight to 2nd out and back into 5th. A normal car doesn’t do this sorta driving.
Plus you need a car in excellent condition for high speed chases!!!!!!
Its a joke guards should have minimum 300hp cars so that they can catch criminals during high speed chases!
They’re replaced at 300,00 km
Great for an average car driving to the shops and home again, Garda cars I’d say have the arse driven out of them.
@nelly. Its actually 300,000km
I stand corrected
No chases these days Diarmuid. Gardaí are driving around in low powered Escorts and Ford Transit Connects. Have you not seen them all over the place? Obviously got them on the cheap in bulk.
They’ve a few nice cats knocking around. And definitely a few “sleepers” among them.
Whoops. That should’ve been cars, not cats.
Ford were given then the American police car all ready for the road all they wanted was the maintenance contract on them .put some from the civil service said no. This is the car they need
They don’t want Gardaí to look like actual police because it might be too intimidating. That’s why they aren’t wearing combats and t-shirts on the street and they still have to wear the bus conductors hat. And nothing will change until the public kick up a fuss.
There is no way they considered using Ford Crown Vics in Ireland. They would all have had to be built in right hand drive (which they don’t do) and the engine size is very heavy on fuel.
So that’s a bit of a tall story you have there.
There is the new version… Police interceptor I think it is. More fuel efficient and look awesome!
Robert, yes, just perfect for Irish cities and rural roads………too big and left hand drive. Quick in a straight line but not very nimble in the twisty stuff. A Skoda Octavia vRS would outrun one in the country and we’ve not even mentioned fuel costs yet. Get back to GTA.
Shenanigans. The garda patrol bikes are powerful. Pan European does 235kph, faster than almost any car. Fjr’s are faster still. The old dauvilles are crappy enough at 55bhp, they are fine for normal traffic duties, but you wouldn’t race some body on one for sure.
The Pans are long gone; Honda Deuvilles & FJR are all that are available.
And one BMW 1200 in donegal
Seen a couple of BMW’s in Dublin as well I have to say they are very impressive as Garda bike !
thejournal.ie (or someone) should make a freedom of information request to the government to see how much has been spent on repairs alone on Garda vehicles (excluding servicing). Seeing as Ford have the contract for this work it should be very easily carried out, as all they have to do is type in the reg of a car on their computer system and they can tell straight away what, when and where the work was done on a vehicle and how much it cost !!!
True. And it’s not as if these main Ford/Toyota dealers are fleecing the state with inflated service charges! Nope that could never happen.
The Garda does not come under FOI as yet.
Hey – what ever happened to the Garda Segways? maybe the Journal could find out. I haven’t seen a single one since all that press at their launch.
They were costing too much to charge so they decommissioned them.
The book is comin’ out, I’m tellin ya straight, the book is comin’ out. Under the Vehicular Segways Act, 2012, only Garda Siochana are permitted on pedestrianised areas, giving them a better view to police the streets as well as greater mobility.
Assistant Garda Commissioner John Twomey said Segways would help gardai monitor areas not readily accessible to other vehicles.
Cue Segway to Copper Face Jack’s
There was one at the Flightfest, can see couple in garage at back of Pearse St station, every day, seems like any time of day.
Alright journal journo’s. I welcome the exclusive, and the more exclusives the better – but this is a rerun if today’s earlier exclusive so it’s no longer that exclusive.
Still, I welcome a new story.
If we managed without them for 2 months great. Now lets put these guys on the beat in Temple Bar where they are so badly needed. flogging the bikes will add much needed cash into Enda coffers.
You don’t seem to understand cause and effect. No bikes means regular traffic has to take up their escort role which means regular Gardaí have to take on more traffic duty which means less Gardaí patrolling.
Sye with nobody but bankers and politicians able to afford fast cars anymore why would the Gardai need fast cars themselves?
Plenty of pepper spray tho !!
Not enough IMO
I find it very amusing how all the part time yobs thought they were going to charge through a police line and find no resistance just because they were doing it under the guise of a protest.
They could all was lease their fleet, that would mean that they would have well maintained vehicles with no constraint on maintains costs and the vehicle would be replaced if not up to operational requirements. And if the company were providing a poor leasing service they could walk away and tender another contract. This would leave the Garda get on with its primary job and not worrying about fleet maintenance or purchase.
What would they do for vehicles in between walking away from an unsatisfactory leasing company and finding a new one? What would happen if the leasing company went bust & the vehicles were repossessed? Vehicles that are vital to wellbeing of the country should belong to the state and not subject to the whims & problems of private companies.
I no expert in car leasing agreements but if you have lease agreement with BMW or VW. It would want to be a world ending situation for company like them to fail on there contracts and I would think that a good legal team for the goverment would lay out the contract that would cover situations like that.
Balamory’s PC Plum. The whole lot of them.
Someone who spends their day in an office gets to decide when the operational gardai get a new car.. These people never have to drive a patrol car themselves.. Those cars are driven 24hrs a day 7 days a week by many different drivers throughout the shift! So a 4 year old garda car has the equivalent driving history of a non-garda car of approximatly 16 years or more!!
What model Garda car could be replaced for €3000 and were can I get one. A bit of wishful thinking.
Great story. Could just benefit from more people reading it before they comment.
The story itself is all facts: All the bikes in the country were taken off the road in July and August. Simple. And there’s plenty of facts and figures to back everything up.
It is only when the piece starts to explain the REASONS why this happened that it’s couched in more cautious terms. There’s usually lots of reasons for anything happening, so I don’t expect any one reason to be presented as the only possible one.
Can stand motor cyc cops, they really think they’re somethin! Also we Irish are notorious for abusing the sh1t out of anythin we don’t own!
Who cares if some big wig wont have a fancy bloody escort through our capital while the rest of us are stuck in traffic , put the bikes to normal police work and let the so called VIP’s get around like everyone else .
Keep them like that, save a fortune.
Yet another intelligent comment.
Where are the vehicle numbers pulled from ??? Or are they a made up figure?
The tragic incident occurred on the Oola to Doon Road, about three miles outside Oola, at about 1.45pm. His body has been removed to Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick. A push bike can be more dangerous than a properly used quad bike if its not used in the correct manner. This kind of bike is obviously the quickest option for road bike cycling as well as may be the bike of preference for racing & most skilled road bike cycling enthusiasts. http://empireroadbikes.com/
Health check?
have your say