This is Dublin 2017

If you're a regular reader of my blog you will know that I talk about "posting for posterity" a lot. It really sums up my attitude to my blog, it's just a hobby and probably the best thing to come out of it is the record it leaves...I do like to think that some day (say in about 150 years) this blog might be read by someone as a record of how an ordinary person lived in the early 21st century.  How cool would that be :-)

Anyway I had a bit of a eureka moment/wake up call just before I fell asleep on Sunday night. Georgian doors etc and posting for posterity is all very well - and it is, I'm not taking away from one of my most recent blog posts, I've wanted to do it for a while, I enjoyed doing it, and I think it is a nice record to have.
But when I was going in to the office at 7am the other day there were 2 people asleep in sleeping bags literally 2 feet away from me as I was going in the office side entrance door on Marlborough Street.
Then at the ESB building on Sunday, that I mentioned in the Georgian door blog, there were a few people sleeping out/sitting there also - actually they had set up a bit of a camp..
On Grafton Street, every single night there's a huge soup kitchen and clothes/blanket bank set up - I've seen it loads of times, there's a huge amount of people attending it :-(
There's also a mobile health clinic that pulls up to St Stephen's Green every night to help people who are living on the streets.

And that's the Dublin right now that needs to be recorded "for posterity". Great Recession or not, don't forget we had years of the Celtic Tiger before that, and this is what we have to show for it, and this is how some (a lot) of our fellow citizens have to live now.  And while there's nothing new there, I do think it's close to the worst it's ever been...or it's certainly not getting better

And another thing that really makes me angry is the hiding / under reporting of the problem by the Government/in the media.  As far as I am aware a count is done once a year or a few times a year of the number of people on the street.  Last year (November I think??) I saw a report in the papers in relation to the numbers.  The count was done on a freezing cold night with the most horrific lashing rain.  On nights like this people are going to do as much as possible to get in to a hostel or room for the night.  The count needs to be done on a really mild night when you will get the most accurate picture of the extent of the problem.

Rant over.  Now to think of something I can actually DO.