Christians don’t need to wage any wars in defence of Christmas. But we do need to find new ways to sustain the transformative message of Christmas in our contemporary age.

Weeks of relentless advertising have started, all designed to part people from their money at this, ‘the most wonderful time of the year’. But there’s nothing wonderful about it for the 11,000 people who are homeless, or for more than 3,000 children who will spend it in emergency accommodation. What kind of Christmas are they going to have?

How should we respond to the disruption caused by climate activists? It seems that the pattern established in response to historical activism including the movement for universal suffrage and the civil rights campaign in the USA is being followed here. Both these movements have universal support today but were deeply distrusted and even despised when still fighting their battle.

  This weekend marks Prisoners’ Sunday, a moment in the year prompting us to pause and consider the men, women, and children who inhabit our prisons and places of detention. People in prison are rarely the recipients of sympathy. Their concerns and travails barely register with the general public. In fact, public opinion on penal… Read more »

Even when landlords are not selling up, tenants in private rental accommodation have limited security. One recent example reveals that private tenants in receipt of HAP don’t have the same security of tenure as someone in local authority housing, yet subsidising tenants in private rentals has been used by the State for years as a substitute for directly providing a functioning social housing system.

Our research had shown us, time and time again, that homelessness is not an inevitability, not some unintended by-product of the normal functioning of an economically developed society that had to be accepted as a part of life. The well intentioned, but essentially incorrect, statement that ‘homelessness can happen to anyone’ is not backed by the evidence.

Because prisoners depend on prison staff for their most basic needs, the research concludes that it is critical to the concept of trauma-informed practice how staff exercise their power and authority in staff-prisoner relationships.

During Covid-19, the eviction ban was considered to be constitutional because we had a health emergency. It could now be re-instated on the grounds that we have a housing emergency.  

As the public consultation about pedestrianising Capel Street showed, we can work together to make our environments healthier and more enjoyable for everyone.

Homelessness organisations and others in the non-profit sector have always been involved in advocacy and therefore in shaping government policy. This report continues this practice not only by its analysis of the two most recent Irish housing strategies but also by examining international examples of housing and homelessness policy.