It was very sad to learn that the body of a dead man was discovered in the early hours of this morning in the Phoenix Park. The dead man was discovered near the Wellington Monument in a sleeping bag. The Gardai are keen to talk to anybody who may have been in the vicinity of Wellington Road in the Phoenix Park between 12.30am and 1am today. Anyone with any information is asked to contact Cabra garda station on 01 666 7400.

This very sad discovery again highlights the housing crises in Dublin City where despite €millions being spent every year, and close to half a €billion over the last ten years, we have almost 30,000 applicants on the City Council housing list and ever increasing numbers of homeless people.

At Monday’s meeting of Dublin City Council we will consider for approval an action plan to end homelessness by 2016. While I support an action plan to address this issue I am very concerned that the draft plan will fail to address the problem. The plan does not include any measurable targets and this makes it weak.

At the November meeting of the Central Area Committee I received unanimous support for the following emergency motion:The elected members of the Central Area Committee support the objective of the Dublin Homeless Action Plan to end the need for people to sleep rough and long term homelessness in Dublin by 2016. To strengthen the draft Action Plan we propose amending the plan to include the target number of housing units and the budget that will be required for each year to achieve the Action Plan’s objectives.

An action plan without measurable targets is like a car without an engine, you can put it on the road but it will go nowhere. I hope the motion I proposed will be adopted by the full council so that the action plan might make some real impact to address the serious homeless problem in our city.  Mary