Anger is a strange emotion – it can bring out both the worst and the best in people. For anger can lead not just to destructive outcomes, but can also trigger responsive action where doing good is its primary intention.
Think of Bob Geldof shouting “give us your f***ing money”, live on the BBC during Live Aid in 1985. He’d had enough of the world pussy-footing around the tragedy that was unfolding in Ethiopia, had enough of all the political lip service, had simply had enough of watching thousands of people – men, women and children – starve to death in what BBC reporter Michael Buerk called “a biblical famine in the 20th century”.
In that horrific context, it was anger and frustration that was the trigger for Live Aid. And at that time, and due largely to the grand scale of the event and the extraordinary global response, the anger worked – up to a point.
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Yes, lives were saved, and yet, in 2000, some 15 years after Live Aid, Ethiopia was still one of the most poverty-stricken countries in the world.
Consider then how, in a different crisis and in a different time, Dubliners have been leaving coats for the homeless on the Ha’penny Bridge these past few weeks. Is this a good thing?
Of course it is, in that it is kind and thoughtful and done for the best of reasons. I’d have left a coat there myself if I lived in Dublin – and for exactly the same reason that I buy coffee and sandwiches regularly for Dimitri, a homeless man in the town where I live in Co Wicklow.
For the coat-givers, the motivation is obviously borne out of frustration and anger, and by the feeling that if nothing is being done to help those in crisis in big-picture societal terms then, surely, a bit of small-picture response must surely be worth something.
But the problem is, it isn’t. Not really. Just as my endless coffees and sandwiches haven’t secured Dimitri a roof over his head, nor will any number of winter coats left on a city bridge fix the national problem of homelessness.
Well-intentioned as we all are, it is what it is – an emotional, heart-over-head reaction. Like rubbing Savlon on a broken leg, it’s not a solution to the problem.
The latest figures tell us that we now have more than 10,300 homeless people in Ireland. Shockingly, almost 4,000 of those are children. Imagine that.
When the Gaiety Theatre is full to bursting for any given performance of its pantomime this Christmas, all those filled seats, from the stalls to right up in ‘the gods’, will amount to only half the number of children that we have on our streets or in emergency accommodation. That’s an awful lot of winter coats.
It’s time to stop letting our hearts rule our heads. All that does is give the Government breathing space.
Yes, they’re building houses, but not enough. Yes, they acknowledge the problem, but what’s the actual plan – the thought-through, step-by-step solution? It’s a numbers game, after all – but nothing here, it seems, is adding up.
It’s five years ago this month since Jonathan Corry died on Dublin’s Molesworth Street, just a stone’s throw from the Dáil. How many more of our citizens have to die, and how much higher do the homeless figures have to climb before the Government starts using its head, and we stop letting them off the hook with heartfelt interventions that only, in reality, help to distract from the real problem?
What homeless people need is a solution. And that solution isn’t coats. It’s houses.
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Roslyn Dee: 'I understand the good intention but people on our streets do not need coats, they need homes'
Roslyn Dee: 'I understand the good intention but people on our streets do not need coats, they need homes'
Anger is a strange emotion – it can bring out both the worst and the best in people. For anger can lead not just to destructive outcomes, but can also trigger responsive action where doing good is its primary intention.
Think of Bob Geldof shouting “give us your f***ing money”, live on the BBC during Live Aid in 1985. He’d had enough of the world pussy-footing around the tragedy that was unfolding in Ethiopia, had enough of all the political lip service, had simply had enough of watching thousands of people – men, women and children – starve to death in what BBC reporter Michael Buerk called “a biblical famine in the 20th century”.
In that horrific context, it was anger and frustration that was the trigger for Live Aid. And at that time, and due largely to the grand scale of the event and the extraordinary global response, the anger worked – up to a point.
Please log in or register with Independent.ie for free access to this article.
Log In
New to Independent.ie? Create an account
Yes, lives were saved, and yet, in 2000, some 15 years after Live Aid, Ethiopia was still one of the most poverty-stricken countries in the world.
Consider then how, in a different crisis and in a different time, Dubliners have been leaving coats for the homeless on the Ha’penny Bridge these past few weeks. Is this a good thing?
Of course it is, in that it is kind and thoughtful and done for the best of reasons. I’d have left a coat there myself if I lived in Dublin – and for exactly the same reason that I buy coffee and sandwiches regularly for Dimitri, a homeless man in the town where I live in Co Wicklow.
For the coat-givers, the motivation is obviously borne out of frustration and anger, and by the feeling that if nothing is being done to help those in crisis in big-picture societal terms then, surely, a bit of small-picture response must surely be worth something.
But the problem is, it isn’t. Not really. Just as my endless coffees and sandwiches haven’t secured Dimitri a roof over his head, nor will any number of winter coats left on a city bridge fix the national problem of homelessness.
Well-intentioned as we all are, it is what it is – an emotional, heart-over-head reaction. Like rubbing Savlon on a broken leg, it’s not a solution to the problem.
The latest figures tell us that we now have more than 10,300 homeless people in Ireland. Shockingly, almost 4,000 of those are children. Imagine that.
When the Gaiety Theatre is full to bursting for any given performance of its pantomime this Christmas, all those filled seats, from the stalls to right up in ‘the gods’, will amount to only half the number of children that we have on our streets or in emergency accommodation. That’s an awful lot of winter coats.
It’s time to stop letting our hearts rule our heads. All that does is give the Government breathing space.
Yes, they’re building houses, but not enough. Yes, they acknowledge the problem, but what’s the actual plan – the thought-through, step-by-step solution? It’s a numbers game, after all – but nothing here, it seems, is adding up.
It’s five years ago this month since Jonathan Corry died on Dublin’s Molesworth Street, just a stone’s throw from the Dáil. How many more of our citizens have to die, and how much higher do the homeless figures have to climb before the Government starts using its head, and we stop letting them off the hook with heartfelt interventions that only, in reality, help to distract from the real problem?
What homeless people need is a solution. And that solution isn’t coats. It’s houses.
Source: Read Full Article