Anti Homeless Device Removed by An Spréach

Sunday June 22, 2014 17:15

by An Spréach

Today, June 22, members of An Spréach Housing Action Committee removed an anti-homeless device installed on the premises of the Department of Social Protection.

Speaking afterwards one of the activists stated, “it’s the hight of hypocrisy for a department whose supposed function is the protection of societies most vulnerable, resorting to such draconian measures and stopping homeless from people sleeping on their doorstep. It is estimated there are over 150 people sleeping rough at any giving time on the streets of Dublin. Blocking them from sleeping in doorways isn’t going to help their situation at all.”

If any of you know of any other anti-homeless devices, please let us know. It is highly unacceptable, unjust, and will not be tolerated.

An Spréach – (HAC)

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Comments (4 of 4)

What irony!

by doleomite

Sun Jun 22, 2014 21:59

Fair play to Spreach and all involved in this action. These devices have become all the rage with corporate scum in the UK recently. Not surprising to find the DSW as "early adopters" in Ireland though. This organisation hates the poor and the homeless and does more than any other through unnecessary and callous delays and bureaucracy to cause them as much misery as possible as they desperately try to traverse the bureaucratic labyrinth and the hurdles placed in their path in order to obtain the benefits due to them and enshrined by law to help them survive in what remains a very high cost country.

This bureaucratic delay and misery is imposed ostensibly to prevent "benefit fraud" which is I believe less than 3%. But in reality, it is politically ideological and is used in a manner that is intended to dissuade as many people as possible from obtaining their benefits so that government can divert more money to their own over inflated "welfare fraud" wages and ridiculous gold plated pensions paid by the taxpayer for doing SFA, and to pay back the gambling debts of their bankster friends in Europe and the UK. Some of these ridiculous wages amount to 10 doles per week. These folks, and those involved in corporate tax fraud are the real "welfare cheats" in our state

What the person whose benefits are suspended or refused on trivial grounds or who does not have a fixed address with a private landlord is supposed to do to survive on the street is a question they rarely have a good answer for. But apparently they are making sure it doesn't involve the disgusting poor sleeping on their doorstep by installing expensive counter measures. This seems to say "You can die hungry on the street but whatever you do don't die on the DSW doorstep. Think of the bad PR for us. Go die somewhere discreet you scumbags".

We need to save money on welfare, a thing we could easily do by scrapping the entire inefficient and crumbling edifice of the DSW and streamlining the whole thing by having a basic living wage for all citizens. The savings on unnecessary bureaucracy would be tremendous, not to mention the huge reduction in stress and misery unnecessarily imposed on current welfare recipients. And maybe some of the little "hatch hitlers" would have a golden opportunity to see life from the perspective of their "customers" who they often seem to think are somehow living it up in luxury.

prison vs welfare:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/104108

the joys of being on welfare...yeah right:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/102655

jobsbridge:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/103865
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/103763

an interesting read

Sun Jun 22, 2014 22:55

Just to add an interesting read by Michael Taft:
http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/column-that-e600m-we-ca...2011/

and as a reference:
http://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/media/housesoftheoi...d.pdf

Research (from an international review) shows that a larger proportion of social welfare funding tends to be lost to administrative and customer error than fraud

I often wonder how much of our SW budget of 20 billion actually gets used up in the bureaucracy that exists between a person and their payment. This is never outlined in media discussions. Is it 10 billion? 5 billion? Who knows, but I suspect it's a very significant percentage of the SW budget indeed, and in practice a lot less gets paid out to the poor than is perceived by the public. Perhaps the real "welfare parasite" is the huge and annoying bureaucracy itself. With it's out of control spending on expensive systems to detect handwriting and anti loitering spikes. Perhaps the DSW needs to take a good hard look at itself and it's attitudes to the poor before demonising them both in their internal culture and in the media thus helping to provide ideological ammunition for the likes of neoliberal FG politicians

Here's an example of a REAL welfare cheat. Not exactly what you'd expect of course!!:
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/welfare-workers-in....html

A social welfare worker is being investigated by gardaí after allegedly misappropriating €1m by way of payments to people who may not even exist.
The individual involved worked in the Department of Social Protection’s community welfare division and is suspended with pay while the investigation continues. The money was paid out over six years.
The case is one of three involving staff where €1.3m was allegedly illegally taken from public welfare funds over the past decade.

I guess that public sector salary and guaranteed pension just wasn't cutting it. When is enough enough?
Maybe a proper investigation might reveal that white collar criminals are the real "welfare cheats" in Ireland and it's not those whom an ideologically aligned media would like to have us all think.

And perhaps it's the media that need expensive stainless steel spikes placed on their chairs? Because, with a few notable exceptions, they are evidently asleep on the job when it comes to social justice

piss and puke on my doorstep

by rightwing

Thu Jun 26, 2014 16:31

I lived in a block of apartments,and to see some homeless pissing and puking on the communal doorstep was unreal,they would leave their fagbutts,and burns everywhere and empty cans for that night..

There is no balanced report here,you dont show the negative impact a homeless man or woman sleeping on your doorstep has..!

@right wing

by Bernard Briggs

Sat Jun 28, 2014 15:45

I live next to Croke Park and have to put up with the behaviour you describe all of the time. Not from the homeless its GAA fans who do it. They treat the locals with contempt. The concert goers are just as bad.

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Anti Homeless Device Removed by An Spréach

Comments (4 of 4)