Several emergency hostels in Dublin could close in coming months as the Homeless Agency Partnership implements a new strategy. This is supposed to aim at increasing the number of people who can gain access to long-term housing with supports provided in their own home.

Cedar House in Marlborough Street, which provides short-term emergency shelter in Dublin City Centre, will be the first facility to lose funding under the new government plan.

This is a bad decision.

Homelessness in Dublin is a fact. Pretending homelessness is not there will not make it go away. Closing an emergency shelter will mean people trying to sleep on the streets, which impacts on all the people of the city as well as the homeless people themselves.

Street homelessness has a negative effect shopkeepers, tourism and ordinary people trying to go about their business, as well as having appalling effects on the health and well being of the homeless themselves. Closing a shelter makes a bad situation worse.

I support calls for the shelter to remain open. I want to applaud the staff and their union representatives for campaigning to keep this important facility open, and for all the hard work they do. The decision to close this shelter should be reversed.

It's a concern to me that during last week's vote of confidence on Willie O'Dea, the Independent TD for Dublin Central chose to abstain rather than vote against the government.

The former Minister for Defence admitted he had attempted to smear a Sinn Féin candidate in the local elections, and then submitted false information in a sworn court document to cover this up. He resigned, but not before some TD's voted to support him.

Last week's vote presented a clear opportunity to show disapproval of his behaviour and the behaviour of the government. I fail to see why the Independent TD's who claim not to support the government did not take this chance. Has their support been promised to Cowen and Coughlan?

 If so, for what?


They need to clarify where they stand.


If there is some deal on the table for the Independents to support Fianna Fáil in the event of the Green Party walkout, their constituents deserve to know what is going on.

This is the blog for Mary Lou McDonald and Dublin Central Sinn Féin.

Have a look at www.sinnfein.ie for national and international updates.