Alice presented President Mary McAleese with a copy of her book Wasting Time with People in Aras An Uachtarain. The special presentation as also attended by Trustees and the President expressed her warm and enthusiastic support for the work Trust is doing with people who are homeless.
Madam,
Rory Ahern’s letter of June 3rd was a very valuable contribution to this debate. His conclusions are quite alarming, especially as he has been researching the subject for four years.
Working in the front line with people who are homeless, we are all too aware about how easily the people directly affected can seem not to matter at all if money can be saved in the provision of public services.
Perhaps what is most disturbing is his finding that in some instances PPPs can be more expensive than direct public provision, the inference being that human suffering is being inflicted unnecessarily in pursuit of an ideology that seems to imply that making profits is more important than people.
Even more alarming is the idea that the taxpayer is subsidising the making of profits in the provision of public services, given that they can be provided more cheaply by direct State provision. This undermines any notion of fairness and justice. That finding alone should result in calls for a public inquiry.
– Yours, etc,
ALICE LEAHY,
Director & Co-Founder,
TRUST,
Dublin 8.
“We cannot expect the private sector, which is solely concerned with making profits, to protect peoples’ rights to basic services.”
“creeping privatisation of homeless services, by shifting the burden to the voluntary sector, has helped to silence once authentic voices”
Calling on the Voluntary Sector to unite to resist PPPs and privatisation in the health, social and homeless services ALICE LEAHY, Director & Co-Founder of TRUST, the social and health service for people who are homeless, said today (WED. 28 May, 2008) that the recent collapse of PPPs in Dublin represented a shattering blow to the families involved waiting for social housing and the redevelopment of their areas.
The Voluntary Sector must become much more forceful, ALICE LEAHY said as advocates in defending those in society who have no voice instead of becoming involved in providing services that should be provided by the State. It is inevitable, she maintained that “the voluntary sector risks becoming complicit, in letting the State avoid having to provide decent quality public services, unless we speak with one voice in demanding justice for the most deprived”.
“PPPs and the privatisation of services are not about caring for people, they represent opportunities for the private sector to maximise profits in areas where the State should be in the driving seat protecting peoples’ rights. If we are serious about caring for people as people, everyone in the voluntary sector must reject the encroachment of privatisation in all its form in the health and social services, and in the provision of accommodation for people who are homeless,” she said.
ALICE LEAHY went on:
“We have argued against this trend because we have seen the serious consequences for the people we work with. Many well meaning people in the voluntary sector let the government off the hook, when they accept apparently large amounts of money to take over the role of the State in providing services. This represents a form of privatisation that has enabled services to be provided on the cheap, with the shortfall in service quality falling on the most vulnerable.”
Alice Leahy maintained that goodwill and generosity has been exploited. “Worse still, creeping privatisation of homeless services by shifting the burden to the voluntary sector has helped to silence once authentic voices, because to maintain services and keep the money coming in they are forced to keep quiet,” she said.
Advocating human rights based approaches in the provision of services ALICE LEAHY said “they constantly remind us we are not providing charity, or advocating charitable giving, but demanding that we live up to the principles of justice and fair play outlined in our constitution which we all are supposed to subscribe to.”
Madam,
The announcement that incoming Taoiseach Brian Cowen has set up a Taskforce to look at homelessness in Dublin (The Irish Times, May 1st) is welcome – only because at last the Government has recognised there is a developing crisis because of the failure to provide adequate housing and support services. This week’s RTÉ Prime Time programme showed in a compelling way what everyone involved in this area has known for some time: there is a real shortage of accommodation and on any night of the week many people seeking shelter are left to sleep rough.
We have no confidence the proposed taskforce will make any difference unless the Ministers’ involved are prepared to go out and see for themselves conditions on the ground. If Mr Cowen and his colleagues are serious, they must talk both to people who are homeless, and to the front-line workers trying to help them.
Present policy is geared only to clear the streets of the visible signs of homelessness, even if that means putting people into wholly inadequate accommodation. Many people find themselves on the streets not just because they are without accommodation, but because of addiction, mental health problems and family breakdown. They are moved on from one service provider to another in a system that is insufficiently funded and organised to provide them with any real help, and represents nothing more than a poor attempt to keep the streets clear at all costs, regardless of the consequences.
We would welcome the chance to show Mr Cowen and his colleague just how wasteful and dysfunctional is the system over which they are presiding, and how cruel and inhumane it can be to those least able to cope.
– Yours, etc,
ALICE LEAHY,
Director Co-Founder,
TRUST,
Bride Road,
Dublin 8.
