The country is going well or disastrously depending on how you look at it

So we can both accept that homeless figures are down 20% on 2019 and that the country is currently going well in terms of dealing with homelessness.

I was commenting on that because this is a thread about how the country is doing now compared to the past. Comparing the past to the further past really isn't relevant.

We weren't counting homeless children in the 1930s so that is a particularly stupid comparison that you are making. The problems of homelessness was far worse back then.

I have previously called out on these threads the silly romantic dancing at the crossroads vision that is painted of an Ireland in the 1930s that was housing everybody in social housing. It is a myth, a fable and a dangerous misrepresentation.

Here is a 1969 article from the Magill archives that paints a very different picture. There were 20,000 people on a housing list that required you to have two children first!!! So the homeless situation was many times worse then than now. The number of social houses being built was less than now. On all indicators the housing and homeless problems was far worse back in the day than it is now. So rosy pictures of councils building social housing for everyone in the audience are just not real.

Eh, no we didn't have more homeless children in 2017 than we ever had before, that is a simplistic misunderstanding of the data. We started collecting the relevant data in 2013. So the "worst ever" in 2017 is only the worst since 2013. To make a grandiose hyperbolic claim that it is the worst ever, you have to produce something else to claim that.

This is right up there in terms of not understanding data with the poster who claimed that we were the worst ever in the world for Covid when we spent one week at the top of the statistics.

Nothing in your post contradicts a single point in my post.

(1) Records began in 2013, so worst ever is not worst ever, only worst since 2013. Different records were kept before that, but even they don't go back far. So "worst ever" is either a not understanding the data or not wanting to understand the data and misusing it.

(2) A Daily Mirror article backs you up with a headline that is not repeated in the body of the article. Well, I am blown over by that evidence. Could Google not do better than that?

(3) Then we have a lobby group making grandiose claims at a conference or something. Well, that is really persuasive.

(4) Finally, a third source, the Irish Post. Well that is funny.

(5) I think you missed it, but we were actually the worst in Europe for Covid for a day or two last week. Nobody made much of it because those daily figures included some backlog.

(6) As I have shown repeatedly, the homeless and housing problems were far worse in the 1930s to 1960s, an era which some around here think was a glorious time for social housing.

Huh?

You say that the country is doing dismally if you look at information and then you post a series of unconnected anecdotes and misinformation to back that up!!!!

If you are claiming that information shows that the country is doing dismally, perhaps you could link to happiness surveys, international wellbeing surveys, comparative employment and economic data etc. that actually backs you up.

Are you suggesting that the arrival of Covid saw those who weren't really homeless disappearing of the list for fear of the chance of catching Covid? Or do you have an alternative explanation?

It has been shown time and again that the numbers dropped at the same time as Covid. However, that is also the same time as some of the Government measures took effect.

Despite your claim, there has been zero actual evidence of the numbers dropping directly due to Covid, the difference between causality and correlation not either being considered or understood.

I haven't tripped myself up. You are using quotations from the poverty industry to back up your opinion. Fine, that's their opinion too, but I take it with the biggest grain of salt, because the biggest threat to the Peter McVerry Trust or the Ana Liffey Drug Project is that people find jobs and homes, so they want to prolong the misery of others to keep their livelihoods going. That is the way of all organisations like that.

Now this is an interesting article from a respected economist.

"The at-risk-of-poverty threshold at 60 per cent of the national median is currently around €15,000 for a single person (or €32,000 for a 2+2 family). This income would be at around the 90th percentile of the global income distribution."

What that means is that a person defined as being in poverty in Ireland is better off than 90% of the world's population. That is seriously impressive. Now, look at this quote:

"Nigeria where the average income of the top five per cent is lower than the income of the bottom five per cent in Ireland."

The misery junkies working in the poverty industry won't like this, so you won't see this being promoted by the charities anytime soon.

Well, as someone who rejects exclusionary nationalism, I do have concern for how we do here compared to my fellow man. And a situation whereby the poorest 5% in Ireland are wealthier than the richest 5% in Nigeria is of interest. Similarly, when the poorest 5% in Ireland are richer than 90% of the world, that is also saying something.