The number that tells the story of Ireland in 2023: 3,000 people queueing for food vouchers

The end of the year compels one to take stock. Even if you’re trying to avoid reflecting on choices, decisions, mistakes and actions, there is something about the natural deadline built into our calendar that brings all of that to the surface.

When it comes to assessing 2023 in Ireland, the figure of the year for me is 3,000. Actually, it was something more than that but three thousand is a round figure. On the morning of December 13th more than three thousand people queued at the edge of my neighbourhood for food vouchers from the Capuchin centre in Dublin 7.

Earlier this year the Taoiseach questioned the veracity of a survey on the number of people accessing food banks. He offered no counter-evidence to bolster his argument, except to say that: “I’d wonder about the scientific basis of that survey, you know one in ten families using food banks would be over 200,000 families using food banks. I am not sure that’s correct.”

This assertion was seemingly based on nothing but vague doubts about the methodology and a perspective of what life is like when you do earn a lot, when you can afford to live where you want. When you are, say, a Fine Gael TD. This attitude dominates both the Taoiseach’s and Fine Gael’s politics, ideology and perspective. But it is just a perspective. It is a version of reality. It is something that declares: well, that’s not how I see or experience things, so it simply can’t be.

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In some ways, I can see where he’s coming from. If I had presided over what the Government parties and housing ministers have done to housing in Ireland – and the almost infinite consequences of that – I’d probably be tempted to deny reality too. How could anyone confront one’s role in such a colossal failure without combining that with getting off the stage roaring an apology to the masses?

It is the housing crisis that created the context for the contemporary rise of Sinn Féin, a party Fine Gael attacks with gusto, despite the fact that Fine Gael’s policies made Sinn Féin as popular as they are.

It is the housing crisis that bolsters the far-right slogan that “Ireland is full”, shouted and posted online by a cohort that seeks to leverage any fault lines in society and blame those stresses on immigrants.

It is the housing crisis that has instigated a silent wave of emigration, splintering friend groups, separating families and pummelling young people’s prospects of creating a future for themselves in Ireland if they don’t have the privilege of generational wealth.

It is the housing crisis that leads to Irish people, immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers sleeping in tents. It is the housing crisis that is contributing to a mental health crisis. It is the housing crisis that is causing what is now being called a loneliness epidemic among young people who, living with their parents in record numbers for the modern age, have little independence, privacy, or freedom when it comes to how they want to organise their lives.

It is the housing crisis that is denying young people the fullness of their experience in third-level education as they commute or sleep on couches.

It is the housing crisis that is draining people of disposable income because so much is going on rent. It is the housing crisis that is contributing to a shortage of staff in schools, hospitals, and Garda stations.

It is the housing crisis that is destroying the public realm, as flimsy blocks are thrown up because things got so bad that you just simply had to build something, somewhere. It is the housing crisis that is degrading Dublin because so few people can afford to live in the city. It is the housing crisis that is seeing hospitality short staffed because there’s nowhere to rent nearby.

It is the housing crisis that will live in the bones of children who grow up having had nowhere to play, nowhere to invite their friends over, nowhere appropriate to do their homework or even eat at a kitchen table.

It is the housing crisis that leaves thousands of people queuing for food in Dublin, where food banks and soup kitchens are visibly present, apparently among the “wealthiest” cities in Europe when one uses the broken metric of GDP per capita.

It would take something pretty dramatic for anyone who pursued the policies that got us here to end up in a place similar to those queuing for food. They created the reality. Everyone else is living it

It is the housing crisis leaving thousands of people who have permission to stay in Ireland still in limbo in direct provision because they cannot find a room to rent.

And this housing crisis is a housing policy crisis. All of this was foreseen. None of it has been tackled. So as we come to the end of the year, I think of that number. More than three thousand people; homeless people, working people, people with mortgages, people with nothing, a number that is just a fraction of those suffering under these successive failed housing policies, the results of which have caused untold trauma and stress.

It would take something pretty dramatic for anyone who pursued the policies that got us here to end up in a place similar to those queuing for food. They created the reality. Everyone else is living it.

I don’t think they’re ashamed of themselves. But that lack of shame is projected on to everyone wondering how on Earth they ended up contending with many unseen, often unspoken consequences of a crisis they had no role in generating. If that’s you, it’s not your fault.