Alice Leahy Trust Letters to the Irish Times, News and Press

Alice Leahy supports Mayor Eibhlin Byrne’s call for the abolition of the Homeless Agency

Madam,

Lord Mayor Eibhlín Byrne knows what she is talking about when she calls for the abolition of the Homeless Agency (The Irish Times, December 16th). This is something Trust has advocated for some time. Her description of Dublin’s homeless services as “chaotic” is fair comment and underlines the very urgent need for reform. We have been involved in providing frontline health and social services for people who are homeless for over 30 years, and feel compelled to strongly endorse her courageous stand.

Reform in this instance need not cost extra money. As the Lord Mayor has pointed out, we have 1,000 employed in homeless services to provide help to 2,714 people, a situation that rightly may shock and disappoint many, especially as the problem is getting worse! However, it comes as no surprise to us as we have long condemned the way in which services are run, and more importantly, the management culture which seems to ordain that the services are meant to serve the managers and their careers rather than society’s most marginalised people.

How did we get into this appalling situation in Dublin, with major questions about the way in which increasingly scarce resources appear to be wasted? Over the last few years, as the services became “professionalised”, people in frontline caring roles have seen their status and influence decline as that of the increasing number of professional managers increased. The final straw for us came recently when one very well known manager visited us in Trust. When I introduced him to somebody who was homeless he confessed it was the first time he had actually met a homeless person.

If we are serious about tackling homelessness, the greatest resources must be invested in frontline caring, with substantial cuts in the management and duplication of services, and in areas such as research and report production, which have become a minor industry.

– Yours, etc,

ALICE LEAHY,
Director Co-Founder, Trust, Bride Road, Dublin 8.

Alice Leahy Trust Letters to the Irish Times, News and Press

Abolition of Anti-Racism Bodies

Madam,

Sarah Carey’s apparent desire to promote a local charity run by a near neighbour may be understandable (“Grassroots approach to integration proves effective”, Opinion, November 12th). But doing so by applauding the Government’s decision to abolish the National Consultative Committee on Racism (NCCRI) and the National Action Plan Against Racism (NAPAR) because they did not measure up to her implied or potential standards of performance – set by a worthy but relatively untried initiative based in Summerhill, Co Meath – quite simply beggars belief.

Her column is an unfounded and outrageous attack on many very hard-working and dedicated people.
The State must spearhead the campaign against racism in Ireland. The Government is desperate to be seen to be cutting public expenditure. What more convenient bodies to abolish than those which are doing work that has the potential to both embarrass and challenge Ministers? This cutback is also likely to prove popular with those who are quite comfortable with attitudes and policies that if anything foment and encourage racism.

I admire and respect the staff of the NCCRI because I know of the considerable energy and commitment they have demonstrated in their work. Philip Watt, the organisation’s chief executive, has visited us in TRUST on a number of occasions and taken testimonies from perhaps the most vulnerable victims of racism, with whom nobody else would talk.

It is appalling that anyone should seek to denigrate the very people who pressed the Government to keep racism on the national agenda – in a way that helps Ministers to cover up their shameful backtracking in the fight against racism in Ireland.

– Yours, etc,

ALICE LEAHY,
Director Co-Founder, Trust, Bride Road, Dublin 8.

Alice Leahy Trust Letters to the Irish Times, News and Press

Human Rights and the Homeless

Madam,

It was moving to read your report of the inquest into the tragic death of Kevin Fitzpatrick, who was crushed to death in a refuse truck in Limerick last year, because of the the obvious love, care and deep concern shown towards him by his family (The Irish Times, October 23rd).

Mr Fitzpatrick often slept rough or in hostels and was well known to us in Trust. He often spoke to us affectionately about his family. Indeed, for anyone seeking to understand the nature of homelessness, the comments by his older brother Michael are telling. Kevin Fitzpatrick did not come from a broken home. His parents made every effort to get him to come home and change his lifestyle, short of “hitting him over the head”. In the end they concluded that his way of living, “which to the rest of us might seem strange, was one that made him happy”.

Kevin might have had a tendency to “push people away,” as his brother put it, but on one of his last visits to us he brought a shivering, hungry kitten and asked us to find a home for it.

In my experience of working for over 30 years with people who are homeless, Kevin Fitzpatrick’s story is not unusual. Some people do choose to live in a way that many others find unacceptable. That insensitivity and rejection of their right to be different means that considerable funds are spent by the health, social and homeless services seeking conformity from people who either cannot, or will not, fit in.

A human-rights-based approach in the management of these services, while it might sound like a lofty one, actually has the potential to save money as well as ensuring that the rights of people like the late Kevin Fitzpatrick are be better protected and respected.

– Yours, etc,

ALICE LEAHY,
Director Co-Founder, Trust, Bride Road, Dublin 8.

Alice Leahy Trust News and Press, Press Releases

Government cutbacks which attack the most vulnerable must be challenged as serious abuses of their human rights

The recent proposal by the government to withdraw medical cards from people over 70 must be seen as a very serious attempt to abuse and undermine the human rights of one of the most vulnerable groups in our society, Alice Leahy, TRUST and Member of the Irish Human Rights Commission said today (TUES., 21 October, 2008). Calling for a major focus on the human rights of the most vulnerable during the current economic downturn Alice Leahy said that “any complacency on the part of agencies involved in human rights in Ireland, which seem to focus exclusively on political and civil rights, while ignoring the governments responsibility to protect our economic and social rights can, as we have seen in recent days, put the most vulnerable at grave risk.”

“The incomprehension by people from all walks of life, and in every political party, at the attempt by the government to remove medical cards from people over seventy is a reflection that we perceive access to adequate to health care as a basic right. It is rightly unthinkable that we would consciously put lives at risk to save money. There is disbelief in equal measure that anyone would put at risk the decent education services of the next generation by increasing class sizes, because we see that as a very fundamental right as well,” Alice Leahy said.

“This budget represents one of the most serious attacks on the basic rights of the most vulnerable in recent times and it must be seen in those terms. Human rights are not just about political and civil rights and all agencies, especially government and state agencies, far from attacking the fundament rights of the elderly and primary school students, must make a virtue out of protecting and vindicating those rights. All human rights agencies and bodies must become involved in efforts to ensure that happens. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that removal of medical cards from people who cannot afford adequate health care is not only short sighted but will put lives at risk, and balancing the books is surely not worth the death of a single elderly person or the denial of one child to a decent education,” Alice Leahy said.