“Lazy, Greedy Or Both”

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Last weekend’s Sunday Business Post

Mark Hilliard, in The Irish Times, reports:

Dublin City Council chief executive Owen Keegan will face a vote calling for his resignation following incendiary remarks he made on homelessness in the capital.

A motion seeking support among city councillors will be raised at its meeting next month.

It follows an interview Mr Keegan gave to the Sunday Business Post in which he suggested homeless people may be reluctant to leave services in Dublin because these services are of high quality and are an “attractive” option.

…Workers Party councillor Éilis Ryan, who filed the motion, said she and others had called for his resignation and she has “put those calls on a formal basis”.

“Keegan’s claim that Dublin’s homeless services are ‘attracting’ people into homelessness has shored up unfounded rumours that homeless families are lazy, greedy or both,” she said in a statement.

Owen Keegan faces vote calling for him to resign (Mark Hilliard, The Irish Times)

City Council chief: good homeless services in Dublin create demand for them (Owen Keegan, Roisin Burke, Sunday Business Post, February 17, 2019)

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38 thoughts on ““Lazy, Greedy Or Both”

  1. Joe

    When Keegan left Dun Laoghaire’s council after taking some of the worst decisions that destroyed the town and joined DCC, it was Dun Laoghaire’s gain and Dublin’s loss!

    Local elections are looming and if they value their vote, I expect every councilor to vote for his resignation ( apart from FiannaFail/Gael though I might get a pleasant surprise!)

    1. DeSelby

      Keegan’s time is long past. He’s been a scourge on this city since the day he began that job. I seriously hope he gets the boot.

  2. Michael McCabe

    Let’s kick off with some home truths; nobody, absolutist nobody, needs money for a hostel. Only suckers fall for that one. Begging on the streets is out of control. With the good weather approaching it won’t be long it till a toucher comes along every five minutes for money.

    1. Dhaughton99

      I’m just back in from the city centre. To the lad outside tesco on Thomas st, take off the €230 Nike vapormax before you go out begging. To the girl on Nassau st holding her stomach to look like she’s pregnant, you are just fat. You are just begging because it’s in your nature. To the lad on the other end of Nassau st, it’s 15 degrees out, you are just covering yourself with the big blankets to hide. And to the traveler begging on the bridge in Stephen’s green, your husband drives a big 17 D Hyundai and I know council estate where you live. You have more money than the lot of us. You just have no shame.

      1. realPolithicks

        You and your pal mickey mccabe are just a couple of sillies…but then you already knew that didn’t you.

        1. Mel

          Because someone tells you stuff you don’t like you call them names. Well done. I KNOW that begging is a business and ‘going homeless’ is a tactic. I don’t blame these people, I blame the system that tolerates them and infantilises them. I also blame the journalists like Kitty Holland that don’t actually care about the truth and propagate the entitlement and lies of these people.
          To the middle class socialists that pervade our media, people are to be pitied rather than encouraged and they keep them where they are. Welfarism and the number of homes with nobody working in them is entrenched and learned helplessness is normal now.

          1. realPolithicks

            My issue with this is that these two are just making things up, you can have whatever opinion you like but if its BS then be prepared to be called out.

      2. dhaughton99

        Oh, and the chuggers working for Amnesty. You lot are just aggressive and rude and there should be a law brought in. You just do damage to the organisations, which you are supposed to be helping.

        1. millie st murderlark

          Well this thread was suitably nauseating that I think I’m done here for the weekend.

          You folks have a nice one.

          1. Papi

            I started a few replies, then deleted them and thought about the nice man in Waterford instead, and now I’m having a beer. Have a lovely weekend, Millie.

  3. millie st murderlark

    Anyone?

    Because I don’t have the words.

    (That’s a lie. I do have the words but I’ve been asked to stop roaring abuse at my PC in work)

  4. Rob_G

    There are 10,000 people classified as homeless currently; if there is anyone who thinks that there is not at least a few among those gaming the system, then they don’t understand the human condition.

    “If you subsidise something, you can expect to get more of it”.

          1. Rob_G

            You’re right; but think how much more money we would have to spend on the real victims of the housing crisis if so much of it wasn’t funneled off by scroungers…

        1. realPolithicks

          “I have no idea”

          That pretty much sums up you and this comment….2 out of 10,000, thats 0.0002% sounds like the system is being gamed alright….major crisis!

          1. Rob_G

            That’s one way of counting it; another way would be that so far, 100% of the appointed ‘faces of the crisis’ have in fact turned out to be entitled spongers.

          2. realPolithicks

            You see thats the whole point isn’t it robby, people like you don’t give a fiddlers toss about homeless people or the lives they lead. You simply want to score cheap political points in line with your right wing agenda.

          3. Rob_G

            I care plenty about homeless people, and about all of the workers who are currently being screwed by outrageous rents.

            I just think that the moral outrage being expressed at Keegan’s comments is a bit ridiculous – if there are 10k people classed as homeless, of course there is going to be some small amount of skulduggery going on.

  5. Starina

    i’d like to see him stay in a high-quality junkie pit shelter for a few days, see how comfortable he feels.

    1. Mel

      Why would stay in such a place? He is no doubt well qualified. He goes to work and earns his money. Presumably he owns a house. Why would he, or should he stay somewhere like that?

  6. scottser

    I was the homeless outreach officer for dlr under keegan from 2006 -16. I can tell you right now that the vast majority of people who could move on from homelessness did and those who couldn’t had very little concept of what you or I would consider ‘home’. It boils my piss to hear those in authority blaming those whom they are elected to serve for their own failures.
    When emergency accommodation is better than what’s on the rental market then your system is fucked. If the streets are better than emergency accommodation well, you may hang it up.

        1. Nigel

          People on the front line have been warning about this for years and they were right but why start listening to them now?

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