VIEW

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VIEW

An independent social affairs magazine

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Issue 60, 2021

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Front cover: Alice Pelan CrankyCrabDesigns

INSIDE: THE BIG INTERVIEW with Professor Siobhan O’Neill, Mental Health Champion for Northern Ireland – pages four and five

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CONTENTS VIEW MAGAZINE – A social affairs publication with in-depth reporting and analysis The Big Interview

VIEW editor Brian Pelan talks to Professor Siobhan O’Neill about her new role as Mental Health Champion for Northern Ireland and what she hopes to achieve Pages four and five

A Voice of optimism Disability rights advocate and singer Andrea Begley talks about her life during the pandemic, and appeals to people not to ignore those living with disabilities Page six

Human right to housing Leilani Farha, the former UN Special Housing Rapporteur on Housing, tells VIEW why she believes that housing is a right not a privilege Pages eight and nine

Tackling homelessness Professor Paddy Gray talks about his passion for all things connected with housing, and why the issue of tackling homelessness

is close to his heart Pages 12 and 13

Victims praised WAVE campaigner Alan McBride pays tribute to the bravery and courage of victims who would not give up in their battle for compensation Pages 14 and 15

Plea for ‘second chance’ Prison rights campaigner Erwin James believes it is vital that society offers prisoners the chance of rehabilitation Pages 18 and 19

THE BIG PICTURE The front cover of the very first issue of VIEW magazine which was published in January, 2012. The image is of 75-year-old Jim Pierce who was awarded Older Volunteer of the Year by Belfast City Council. Jim sadly passed away on April 28, 2014.

CONTACT US Making a complaint to VIEWdigital – https://viewdigital.org/social-affairs-magazineteam/

Editor Brian Pelan – brianpelan@viewdigital.org Deputy editor Kathryn Johnston – kathrynjohnston@viewdigital.org Publisher Una Murphy – unamurphy@viewdigital.org

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Editorial

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VIEW, an independent social affairs magazine

VIEW editor Brian Pelan takes a look back at the long and winding road of VIEW magazine as the 60th issue goes online ’m sitting at home in Belfast in 2012 wrestling with a huge decision. Should the magazine, which Una Murphy and I, are about to launch be called VIEW or The Wave. We decided on the former, and the rest as they say is history of a sort.

I had recently left the Belfast Telegraph (a decision I’ve never regretted) and had spent about three weeks watching daytime television. I had even become a fan of Loose Women. But a voluntary redundancy payment could only last so long and the clarion call of economic existence was growing louder by the day.

A chance encounter with a former colleague, Joe Mitchell from Brazier Media, led to the idea of starting up a magazine.

“Why don’t you do something about the voluntary/community sector in Northern Ireland,” said Joe. In my then ignorance, I replied: “What’s that”?

It has been a roller-coaster ride since that initial conversation. We’re now on our 60th issue of the magazine. A time for some sort of reflection on where we came from and where we’re going.

The early days are a rapidly diminishing memory. It was all about trying to get VIEW noticed, and, more importantly, how to make the publication a viable enterprise.

The first issue will always stay with me, especially for the interview with north Belfast man Jim Pierce who sadly died in 2014 – two years after I first met him, He had just been awarded Older Volunteer of the Year by Belfast City Council. I was keen to learn more about his story and arranged to meet him at his home. I sat in the kitchen and listened as Jim told me why he had got involved in helping the suicide prevention charity, Lighthouse. Both his twin daughters, Georgina and Geraldine, had taken their own lives.

“When I go to the Lighthouse charity in the morning I will meet someone who is walking the same road,” said Jim. “Part of what I do is talking to other people who have also lost loved ones through suicide. I always pray that the tragedy of suicide doesn’t come to someone else’s door.”

The 21st issue of VIEW represented a

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I have always been interested in the underdog, and in asking hard questions of those in power and who control the purse strings major turning point in the life of the magazine. Up untill that time the publication had a range of stories about the community/voluntary sector. We were now to start producing themed issues. The 21st issue was the first one with its in-depth look at homelessness.

I can still remember my chance encounter with a young homeless man called Kenny. He had just spoken, very eloquently, about his experiences on the streets of Belfast at a homelessness conference. I asked him would he like to tell his story in our magazine? He told me in no uncertain terms that he was not interested. Thankfully, he changed his mind.

His image is on the front cover of the 21st edition. The story inside of Kenny and his friend James was superbly told by journalist Lucy Gollogly, with powerful images from photographer Donal McCann.

So many great people have assisted VIEW in our journey, including Frances Connolly, photographer Kevin Cooper, and VIEWdigital board members Mary McManus, Kathryn Johnston and Kelly Andrews. A special mention must also go to a range of writers, including Harry Reid,

Kylie Noble, Jane Hardy, Megan McDermott, John Higgins, Faith Gordon, and Mary O’Hara, for all their articles in the magazine.

As part of preparing the 60th issue, I had a look back at every one of our publications since we first started. I decided to select a range of people whose voices have always been important in social affairs issues. They include Professor Paddy Gray, WAVE organiser Alan McBride, disability rights advocate Andrea Begley, Mental Health Champion Professor Siobhan O’Neill, prison rights campaigner Erwin James, economist Dr Conor McCabe, and former UN housing rapporteur Leilani Farha.

We also carry an interview with parents Alan and Jennifer Roberts about the battle for truth about their nine-yearold daughter’s death in 1996.

All these pieces come under areas that VIEW has long covered – health, housing, prison reform, victims, disability rights, and suicide prevention.

The aim of our magazine is to present a range of views on different topics.

On a personal level, I have always been interested in the underdog, and in asking hard questions of those in power and who control the purse strings.

I have always been inspired by those who are prepared to take the difficult road in the search for answers to social injustice, and write about it, despite the objectors, critics and spin doctors.

A colossus of journalism was the reporter Robert Fisk who sadly passed away on October 30, 2020. He was uncompromising, determined and utterly committed to uncovering the truth at all costs. We at VIEW magazine will always hold firm to Fisk’s vision of a better world.

As someone who has been involved in journalism for more than 30 years, I am delighted that we are still going. I will try to aim now for 100 issues of VIEW, even though I can hear playwright Samuel Beckett’s words in the recesses of my mind:‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’

And by the way, I won’t hear a bad word about the TV programme, Loose Women.

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THE BIG INTERVIEW with Professor Siobhan O’Neill, the new Mental Health Champion for Northern Ireland

By Brian Pelan rofessor Siobhan O’Neill has written for and been interviewed in various issues of VIEW since the magazine was first published in 2012.

She has been a passionate advocate for better mental health services in Northern Ireland and for the need to develop an effective suicide prevention strategy. I was keen to hear her views about her new position as Mental Health Champion. She was appointed to the role in September this year by Health Minister Robin Swann after acting in the role on an interim basis.

I started off our interview by asking Professor O’Neill how would her new role fit in with her ongoing research work for the University of Ulster?

‘I’ll be working for around three days a week which will allow me some time to continue my academic work.”

She accepted that she faced a huge challenge in her new role. “There is probably more people now than ever who are struggling with their mental health,” said Prof O’Neill.

She also said that the pandemic had a huge effect on mental health.

But rather than sounding dispirited at the task facing her, Prof O’Neill struck an optimistic note. “It’s an amazing time in terms of policy,” she said. “For the first time ever we have a 10-year mental health strategy. We have a plan that has been co-produced. It’s not perfect but it’s nearly there.”

A budget of £500,000 has been allocated per year to the office of the Mental Health Champion. At the moment Prof O’Neill has a team of five people supporting her in the work.

I asked her would the 10-year strategy change how Northern Ireland was treated compared to the other regions in the United Kingdom?

“We need £1.2 billion for the strategy over 10 years. It’s not a huge ask. It’s about doing this thing right and pulling us up to be in the same position as other jurisdictions. Every single government department in Northern Ireland is going to have to pay for this. One of the biggest challenges is to make sure that the political parties commit to full funding for the full implementation of the 10-year strategy.”

I asked Prof O’Neill would the 10year strategy be able to make huge inroads given that before the pandemic we had witnessed a health service under massive pressure. I put it to her that the situation now must be even more difficult.

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Passionate advocate: Professor Siobhan O’Neill “We are talking about conditions that are treatable,” she replied. “Mental illness can be treated. It can be prevented. It’s about making sure that we have a workforce who are able to work in mental health services. It’s also about going in early to help prevent mental illness. We know that if we invest in the early years that we will make a huge difference. All of this can be demonstrated by evidence.”

I asked Prof O’Neill about remarks made by Health Minister Robin Swann that GPs would have a key role in helping to implement the 10-year strategy. Given that

many people are having difficulties – because of the pandemic – in actually getting face-to-face meetings in their surgeries, how would this actually work in practice?

“I don’t necessarily agree that this strategy does put an increased focus on GPs,” she replied.

“Doctors are managing the majority of people with mental health problems in Northern Ireland. That’s the reality. Most people in Northern Ireland with mental health issues are being treated with antidepressants and/or counselling.

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Statement from Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR) on the appointment of a Mental Health Champion in Northern Ireland With the appointment of a permanent Mental Health Champion in September 2021, it is important to look back at the context in which the post was created, its purpose, and more importantly, its serious limitations.

Between the end of 2019 and the onset of the Covid pandemic in March 2020, mental health rights campaigners organised a number of highly visible public actions, challenging the Executive on its lack of urgency and action on suicide prevention and mental health.

They attracted significant media coverage, all of it critical of the Health Minister and the Executive.

During this time the Health Minister refused to meet with the families and the campaign’s coalition of allies.

Towards the end of January 2020, the Executive considered five options from the Health Minister for a mental health champion, ranging from an internal departmental official to a funded appointed champion with legislation.

On the Health Minister’s recommendation, the Executive went with Option 4, a funded, appointed champion, with no legislation.

Information obtained by PPR under Freedom of Information reveals that the Executive rejected the option of a funded appointed champion with legislation, on the basis that it would cost an estimated additional £350 million and would take up to 18 months to get legislation through.

Given the enduring crisis around mental health and suicide, one would have thought that taking the time to get it right and investing sufficient funding would be essential.

Not so. In opting for Option 4, the Health Minister was aware

that there would be concerns over the independence of a Mental Health Champion, funded by the Executive, without formal legislation or powers.

He was also aware that the lack of any statutory powers to act also raised questions over its effectiveness, and that conversely, a Champion with legislation would ‘create certainty and purpose and the legislation could create statutory powers and requirements’.

Interestingly, the Health Minister also requested that the appointment be expedited, in order to allow the Executive ‘to be on the front foot’ on the issue of mental health.

The issues flagged by senior civil servants in the Department of Health are precisely the concerns PPR has in relation to this office.

The indicative terms of reference for the office clearly fetter the challenge function ‘the champion is also expected to challenge decisions where it is appropriate to do so’. (emphasis added).

We are reminded of how Natasha Devon, the UK government-appointed Children’s Mental Health Tsar, was summarily fired when, in 2016 she publicly called out Whitehall’s lack of action on children’s mental health.

Going forward, for the office of Mental Health Champion to have the fullest legitimacy and credibility and impact, it needs to be underpinned by human rights principles, akin to the UN Paris Principles which frame and guide the work of independent human rights institutions.

Independence, transparency and accountability must be its cornerstones.

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For the first time ever we have a 10-year mental health strategy. We have a plan that has been co-produced. It’s not perfect but it’s nearly there “The community/voluntary sector is also taking a huge hit in terms of helping people with mental health problems.”

She pointed out that psychological therapy hubs, which will assist doctors, are going to be expanded. “Right now GPs are swamped. They need a lot more resources,” she said.

“The point of the strategy is that if someone needs treatment for mental illness then they will get that treatment.

And they will get it provided through the regional health service.”

The announcement of her appointment as Mental Health Champion was greeted with huge applause on social media. But some others voiced scepticism, including Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR); Koulla Yiasouma, the NI Commissioner for Children and Young People (NICCY); and suicide prevention campaigner Philip McTaggart.

“There is a legitimate view in how can you work with a group and then criticise them? But I think it’s important to be a part of the change that you are helping to drive. I’ve been critical in the past year of

certain policy decisions. I’ve been very vocal. I use my social media for that. I intend to continue to do that,” said Prof O’Neill. I also pointed out that her office can only make recommendations. It does not have statutory powers to order inquiries as is the case with the Police Ombudsman’s Office of Northern Ireland.

“You are right,” replied Prof O’Neill.

“One of the discussions was should this be a mental health commissioner-type role?

That is a very different role. That’s about looking at mental health services and equality of services. For me this is about policy development and making sure that we have the best possible treatments and interventions. We use the best academic evidence and we listen to people with lived experience.

“My role is about working with policy makers. I’m comfortable with my role. I wouldn’t have applied for it if I felt I had absolutely no power. I believe that this is a really good thing to do. I think there should be more academics working with government to create change.”

My final question to Prof O’Neill was

about the decision to appoint her. Against unrelenting grim statistics about the mental health crisis and an increasing number of suicides, did she worry that the job created was all about the optics, that the Department of Health had to be seen to be doing something?

“I had been working with government departments for a long time. I was uncomfortable about accepting the position of interim Mental Health Champion because I hadn’t applied for it.

But once I started working with them, I could see that change was happening. It wasn’t just optics. People would feel the difference on the ground with improved services, such as perinatal mental health provision. I also don’t have a relationship with any of the political parties. None of them have said what I can and can’t say.

“If I’m sitting on the strategic reform boards and in two years time, if this thing is not happening, because other government departments are not putting money into it, I’ll have to say something or do something. I’m obliged to do it. I couldn’t sleep in my bed if I didn’t do it.”

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A Voice of optimism Brian Pelan talks to disability rights advocate Andrea Begley ne great thing about interviewing singer and disability rights advocate Andrea Begley, who is visually impaired, is that you never know where the conversation will go. One minute we are taking about the effects of Covid-19 on her life, and then we weave effortlessly into a discussion about a weird conspiracy theory which questioned the very existence of Helen Keller.

Andrea has a great infectious laugh and she always seems to wear the brightest colours.

“The last year-and-a-half has been very challenging for me because of Covid.

But things seem to be heading in the right direction now. I’ve been trying to keep as much of a normal routine as possible.

“I’ve been working from home doing bits and pieces of music, and doing some work with the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) when I can.

“Covid has been tough for people in different ways. It’s particularly challenging when you have a disability. Being visually impaired has also meant becoming even more reliant in terms of being guided by people, including strangers.

“For the majority of the time during the lockdown I have been permanently living with my parents and my sister in Co Tyrone. It would not have been feasible for me to have been on my own in terms of support and even down to the basics of getting food and exercise.

“In the early days, the whole thing about queuing outside shops was strange, but hopefully it will only be a bad blot on the page of history. And also there were a lot of people who have been in a worse situation than me.”

The first time I interviewed Andrea was in February 2012 when she urged airports to review their assistance policy for visually impaired people after encountering a number of problems when travelling. The headline on the front cover was ‘Plane Crazy’. I asked Andrea had she witnessed any meaningful changes in policy since then?

“I would say it’s a mixture. In one sense, it’s got better and in other senses, it’s become worse. Awareness levels probably are higher now than they’ve ever been. And social media has enabled more awareness about disability. But trolling also occurs. There was a lot of hysteria whipped up last year when teenagers on TikTok expressed doubt about the existence of disability rights advocate Helen Keller (who lost her sight and hearing after a bout of illness at the age of 19 months).

“It was a mad debate and goes back to my initial comment that things have got better but they’ve also got worse.

Lots of people are still quite afraid to ask

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A woman and her music: Andrea Begley, and, below, when she appeared on the front cover of VIEW in 2102

me if I need help.

“I think the problem for a lot of people, and it goes across the whole disability sector, is there’s still a perception among the general public that if you don’t look the part of a disabled person, then you can’t be disabled. But in terms of travelling now, I have found the two Belfast airports to be very good. Big airports, such as Heathrow, can still be problematic.”

Andrea took a two-year career break from the Northern Ireland Civil Service after winning the final of The Voice on BBC

One in 2013.

“It was a phenomenal experience to win The Voice,” said Andrea. “The sense of accomplishment was amazing. I never expected for a second that something like that would happen to me. I still have a huge passion for music.

“I came back to work in 2015. I’m currently working in the Department for the Economy (DfE) at the moment.

“I’ve been very fortunate to be able to work from home during the pandemic, which has been a real lifesaver, because it gave me a focus and something to do during that whole time when we were all kind of wondering what was going to happen next.

I asked Andrea what was her vision like at present?

“I have a very minimal amount left, a bit of light and colour perception, but overall everything is very blurry. I would be very reliant on my cane for mobility and the support of a guide in nonfamilar situations.”

She described to me some of the awkward situations she faced when she is out walking. “I might come to the corner of a street and the motorist will see me with my cane and just stop. The problem is, that although they are trying to help, I can’t really see them.”

Andrea made an appeal at the end of the interview. “Don’t discount people with disabilities from society, they have a lot to contribute. Many things have been achieved but a lot more needs to be done.”

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A VIEW from the publisher Una Murphy, co-founder of VIEWdigital, thanks all those readers who have championed our magazine e’re celebrating 10 years of journalism on important social issues. In the beginning the digital edition of VIEW magazine was distributed laboriously via a small email list of less than 100 interested readers.

Ten years later nearly 25,000 unique readers per year access our journalism via the VIEWdigital.org website as well as 10,000 people on social media channels.

Before co-founding VIEW, I’d worked in TV documentaries and producer roles. I had trained as a newspaper reporter at The Irish News in Belfast. The move to digital journalism offered an opportunity for in-depth reporting on a small budget.

In VIEW magazine we have a clear vision: a focus on social affairs in Northern Ireland and beyond, discussing topics such as suicide prevention, homelessness, and migrant women.

Before I co-founded VIEW I was interested in how professional journalists linked into the community and voluntary sector. I became a volunteer with a charity, the Media Trust, and helped to organise ‘speed-matching’ events with local charities and members of the National Union of Journalists in Belfast.

Making the move to running an

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independent community media business seemed a logical move but having worked for a time as an independent documentary filmmaker, I knew how difficult running your own business could be. A useful piece of advice from one of my first mentors when setting up VIEW was: “Don’t try to eat the whole elephant. Take one small bite at a time.”

Every day is a school day and I have been helped in my role as publisher by training from the European Journalism Centre which has praised us as a community-driven news organisation (www.engagedjournalism.com/resources/e ngaged-journalism-in-europe-database). as well as the Google News initative, and courses at the University of Central Lancashire and the Public Interest News Foundation. This has helped me, as a publisher, to navigate the line between editorial and business domains, making sure that our hard-hitting journalism becomes sustainable.

Charities, charitable trusts, and foundations have sponsored our journalism, to amplify the voices of campaigners, trying to make a difference in our communities.

Increasingly our audience is playing a role in funding our journalism. I would

particularly like to thank those readers who – as organisations and individuals – championed us from June 2017 onwards, putting their hands in their pockets to financially back us; including my late father Thomas Murphy, a stalwart of the credit union movement, who was a great advocate but sadly died of pancreatic cancer in November 2017. I know how pleased he would have been that we received backing from a philanthropist two years later.

Thanks also to those readers who have become paid subscribers and in return receive the print edition of VIEW magazine, which is also despatched free to libraries throughout the island of Ireland and in Britain.

As a social enterprise, we need to generate revenue. I feel that we must now ask our audience to pay for independent community journalism, which is why we’ve asked for a small financial contribution from readers for this 60th digital edition of VIEW magazine.

• Become a paid subscriber https://viewdigital.org/becomea-paid-subscriber/ and you'll be first to get our new multimedia product VOICES.

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QA AND

‘’ Housing is a right not a privilege VIEW editor Brian Pelan talks to Leilani Farha, right, the former UN Special Rapporteur on Housing Brian Pelan: Can you tell me a little about what you have been doing since ending your role as UN Special Rapporteur on Housing? (Ms Farha served in the post from 2014 to 2020).

Leilani Farha: “After finishing my tenure as a rapporteur, I sort of officially launched a new human rights organisation called The Shift, which is not a traditional organisation, but rather, it is intended to help grow a social movement focused on housing as a human right.

Question: How effective was your role as UN housing rapporteur?

Where you frustrated by it or did you view it as a success?

Answer: What a great question.Very few journalists have asked me that. I was never frustrated in the role. But I was disappointed that governments can speak out of both sides of their mouth. They present to the international community as if all is hunky dory, and they’re doing everything they can to address the housing crisis. And then in their domestic context, not, in fact, taking on board the measures that are necessary to address the global housing crisis. I think that my tenure as

rapporteur was actually quite successful.

People have told me I have helped to popularise the idea that housing is a human right.

Q: You have said frequently that housing is a right not a privilege.

How do we make this a reality?

A: In every jurisdiction it’s going to be different, I don’t know enough about the constitutional arrangements in Ireland to say what effect it would have. But if it is possible to open up the Irish constitution for constitutional reform, of course, I would support and do support the call for a constitutional right to housing. It’s also important because it is a very formal recognition by the legislature, that people have this human right. And for people suffering housing disadvantage, or damaging housing conditions, that can be a very important, even symbolic moment Q: When you talk about a right to housing, are you talking about a right to public housing?

A: It can include public housing. But one of the things about the human right to housing, under international law, is it’s not prescriptive. What it does say is that

everyone has the right to live in peace, security and with dignity. And it’s suggestive that in most societies, social housing will be required, or public housing will be required.

Q: Can you go into more detail about something you talk about a lot – the financialisation of housing?

A: I think it is important to understand the language. And I think folks in Ireland know very well, at first-hand, what financialisation of housing is, because you have one of the most financialised housing systems in the world. The common definition I have come up with, that seems to work with people, is when housing is used as a place to park, grow, leverage, or hide huge sums of money, which we call global capital. And housing has become one of the best places to stash it. Because there’s a good return on investment.

It’s pretty liquid, you can be in and out trading very quickly. It has nothing to do with proximity to a school or its proximity to health care services or employment opportunities. It has nothing to do with the soundness of the structure. Nothing. It is literally a title to a box, a shell often not lived in, certainly

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Leilani Farha walking through a neighbourhood in Manila, Philippines, when residents were resisting eviction by the people who own it.

Q: What impact did the global pandemic have on homelessness throughout the world?

A: It meant that governments had to look at homelessness. Suddenly they were confronted with the homelessness that they had created, and had allowed to grow rapidly. A lot of western European and North American governments understood that they needed to do something to assist people living in homelessness. And I don’t think it came out of some concern, to be honest, for people living in homelessness. I think it became we suddenly understood the meaning of the ‘R’ factor (the higher the ‘R’ number the more people are affected). A lot of governments also put a freeze on evictions, including evictions due to rental arrears. But now that we are emerging from the pandemic, because of the vaccine, we’re seeing homeless people being left to fend for themselves again.

Q: More than a million residents in Berlin this year voted in a referendum to expropriate properties owned by large corporate landlords. Do you welcome the vote and do you think it will actually happen?

A: First of all, that was a huge win in so many ways, for the power of mobilisation.

It was also a huge success, because people, including many young people, in my opinion, rooted the referendum in a constitutional provision. I think what it means is that it has changed the political discourse in Berlin.

Q: What is your view on the housing crisis in the Republic of Ireland?

A: Well, the government has to get its head around the relationship between the uber financialisation of housing and the homelessness problem, the precarity of housing, and the lack of social housing. The National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) is selling off housing to investors that could be harnessed for social good.

And those investors do not have the interests of low income people in Ireland.

They’re trying to make a profit. And that is not to the benefit of the struggling single mother with three children or four children in Ireland. People are leaving the country because they can’t find affordable housing.

Q: Bailiffs, supported by the Gardai, recently in Dublin forced their way into a building which was being used as social centre, after lying vacant for a number of years. Do you support residents who mobilise to try to put a stop to evictions?

A: Governments like to paint that as

criminal behaviour or intransigent behaviour. I view it, and The Shift views it, as rights claiming. When someone pitches a tent in a park, because they have nowhere to live that is secure and affordable, that is a rights claim, a human rights claim. They are claiming their right to housing. And as long as governments continue to take actions that deny the right to housing, people will continue to make those claims because people need to survive. I view the mobilisation of people occupying lands to make their demands as rights claiming. And I think governments need to start understanding it that way also.

Q: You recently asked on Twitter “Why is the world’s most powerful private equity firm so interested in women’s underwear?” Can you tell me a little more about this?

A: I’m so glad that caught your attention as I was trying to have a little fun. One of the most powerful real estate companies in the world is Blackstone who have just purchased a women’s underwear company called Spanx. The question that I want to pose is do you know that Blackstone is purchasing residential real estate and raising rents which results in the eviction of many people worldwide, including many women who may wear Spanx underwear?

• To find out more about The Shift, go to www.make-theshift.org/

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The Housing for All document will do nothing to alleviate the housing crisis in Ireland because it is focused on protecting rates of profitability and not rates of affordability Economist Dr Conor McCabe argues that the Irish government’s strategy is purposely designed to protect the constantly rising asking prices of landlords and developers here is a comforting myth that we live in a world of unintended consequences. This includes the view that politicians and civil servants are stupid and useless and are out of their depth when it comes to the various crises we are facing today. In reality they are none of these things. When it comes to policy, the outcome that is achieved is the outcome that was planned. Nowhere is this more clearly shown than with housing.

On September 2 this year, the Irish government launched its Housing for All document. It promised to “support home ownership and increase affordability; eradicate homelessness, increase social housing delivery and support social inclusion; increase new housing supply [and] address vacancy and make efficient use of existing stock”. The reason for this apparently new initiative was the crisis in affordability and availability that was effectively locking out an entire generation from owning or even renting their own home.

However, the government’s strategy is purposely designed to protect the constantly rising asking prices of landlords and developers. This in itself is part of a wider investment policy which begun to emerge in the wake of the bank crisis.

In 2009, the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) began lobbying for new legislation to allow it to sell its apartments (and commercial property) to private investors organised in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).

Once the law was in place, NAMA began to sell off its portfolio.

Private investors were encouraged to set up REITs and buy NAMA assets by

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NAMA personnel. Stephen Vernon of Green REIT who told the Sunday Business Post in February 2016 that John Mulcahy advised him in January 2013 to get into REITs. Mulcahy was a former chief executive of Jones Lang LaSalle who ended up as head of asset management in NAMA before leaving the organisation to join property fund IPUT which set about “mopping up” discounted property in Ireland, including former NAMA assets.

The REITs bought up NAMA apartments, as well as buy-to-lets and repossessed properties from the banks, initiating a business model based on high rents on an upward trajectory in a rental market with poor social housing provision and tepid residential construction levels.

In other words, the REITs business model, then and now, requires an undersupply of housing that forces rents up in order to work. It is not in their interests to see the rental crisis tackled in any way, as their profitability is based on crisis not equilibrium.

And equilibrium means rents (and mortgage repayments) that are linked to earnings, which in Dublin would require a 60 to 70 percent drop in rents in order to achieve a level in line with social cohesion and stability.

This goes against the business model of REITs, as well as the institutional investment companies that have followed them into the Irish housing market.

Ireland is currently one of the most profitable states for these investors, and it is because of the high rents that are causing the current crisis. The apartments they build are meant to be drip-fed onto

the market in order to ensure rents keep rising.

This is the business model that successive Irish governments have protected since 2009. On October 14, 2015, the then-Taoiseach Enda Kenny told the Dáil that the government refused to freeze rents or tie them to inflation as to do so would interfere with the market.

They were eventually forced to do something, but the rent reviews that were eventually agreed had enough loopholes in them to allow institutional investors to continue to set high rents and on an upward trajectory.

Which is why David Ehrlich of Ires REIT was able to say in 2016 that Ireland is “a great market. We’ve never seen rental increases like this in any jurisdiction that we’re aware of... I truly feel badly for the Irish people.”(1) We have a housing crisis because it has been designed that way. The Housing for All document will do nothing to alleviate that because it is focused on protecting rates of profitability and not rates of affordability.

The fundamental faultline with housing in Ireland is that cost has been decoupled from income. It needs to be linked once again. This means a severe drop in rent prices in order to bring them in line with incomes again.

Unfortunately, current housing policy is light years away from achieving this, and unfortunately that is the plan.

(1) www.irishtimes.com/business/commercialproperty/ireland-s-biggest-landlord-i-feel-ba d-for-the-irish-people-1.2870230

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Housing expert: Professor Paddy Gray in Belfast

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When we think about homelessness, we think about people lying on the streets. It’s much more than that. It’s about sofa-surfing and living in intolerable conditions. It’s also about domestic abuse and having nowhere to escape to

Professor Paddy Gray talks to VIEW editor Brian Pelan ounty Armagh-born Professor Paddy Gray is inextricably linked with housing issues and is a regular media commentator. He has also written on many occasions for VIEW magazine. I recently caught up with him in Belfast.

We started off by chatting about where he was born.

“I grew up in a one-parent family in a small estate in Armagh. It was known as ‘Tin Town’. My mother steered us all in the right direction and made sure that we went to college.”

Paddy ended up studying social sciences in Jordanstown Polytechnic (later to become the University of Ulster) in the late 1970s. His first job, after leaving the polytechnic, was working in 1981 in Rathcoole, north Belfast, for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE).

After working for the NIHE for six years, he left to take up a post as a lecturer with the University of Ulster in Derry.

“They had advertised for a housing lecturer. I applied for the post and got the job,” said Paddy. He went on to do a Masters and ended up as a professor.

Since much of Prof Gray’s world revolves around housing, I was keen to hear did he have a ‘big vision’ of what it, ideally, should look like.

“I believe in good quality housing for all,” he replied. “I’m not saying everybody should live in public housing. I’m not saying that we should have a Soviet-type system.

But people should have a choice about where they live. Some people are excluded and don’t get a choice.

“We have a social housing system which is highly stigmatised. We also have a private rental system with many landlords being good landlords. But there are also bad landlords.

“I suppose my vision for housing is that everyone has a choice to get good quality housing and that no one sleeps on the streets, and that no one is forced to live in temporary

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Family memories: Professor Paddy Gray being interviewed outside the home where he grew up in Armagh accommodation for a long time.”

Since Paddy owns and rents a number of properties I asked would he describe himself as a “good landlord”?

“I get someone to manage the properties. All the houses I have are houses that I have lived in. I would see myself as a good landlord.”

Prof Gray also sits on 14 housing boards, including in Northern Ireland, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland.

Our discussion moved on to the spiralling rents in the private housing sector in the Republic of Ireland. Is government regulation the answer in terms of capping rent increases, I asked?

“Yes, to a certain extent,” he said.

“There are rent controls in the Republic. I sit on a regulatory board.” He went on to say that he had sympathy for many people who were struggling with high rents in the private sector.

We also discussed the break-up of the Housing Executive in Northern Ireland and could he envisage a return to large-scale building of public housing in this part of Ireland. “It's not possible because of the way the system is at the moment,” he said. “The model being proposed is to take the Housing Executive out of the public sector.”

We also discussed the concept of the need or desire to own one’s home. In

Ireland, historically, this wasn’t always the case, I argued. But post-Margaret Thatcher the idea of a home as an asset started to take hold, especially with the sell-off of public housing to tenants. Was this a positive or negative development, I asked?

“I would possibly sit on the fence in regard to that question,” replied Professor Gray. “I’m not left-wing. I’m not saying everything should be public housing. I believe in choice. People do want to live in and own their own homes because they can see prices going up. It’s all about supply and demand. If there is a high demand for housing, then prices are always going to go up.”

Two other areas that have Prof Gray’s attention are homelessness and mental health. He became quite passionate when he talked about his definition of what it’s like to live without a roof over your head.

“When we think about homelessness, we think about people lying on the streets,” said Prof Gray. “It’s much more than that. It’s about sofa-surfing and living in intolerable conditions. It’s also about domestic abuse and having nowhere to escape to.

“I believe everyone should live in safe, good-quality accommodation.

“In terms of my interest in mental health, it’s because I’ve suffered from depression. I am not afraid to say that I have suffered from it for a very long time.

“It’s good to see that there is less of a stigma now in talking about it. It was very different when I was younger.”

Our interview ended on a slightly surreal, but fun, note, with Paddy singing me a few lines from the well-known Irish ballad, Carrickfergus.

We didn’t agree on everything in terms of housing policy, but one has to admire Prof Gray’s passion and zest for life, and his honesty when it came to talking about his own personal struggles with mental health.

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Remembering Robert Fisk Renowned journalist’s horror of war influenced all of his writing, says filmmaker, author and human rights activist Nelofer Pazira-Fisk hen introduced as ‘Robert Fisk, the war correspondent’, Robert used to look disapprovingly at the speaker. He knew the reference was a compliment for his bravery for his coverage of so many wars. But he used to tell me he utterly disliked being called a ‘war correspondent’.

The word ‘war’ had a different meaning for him. He spent 48 years of his life going to places of conflict to report on the effect of wars.

He reported wars with brutal honesty because of his principled anti-war philosophy. “War is not about winning or losing,” he said. “War is about a total breakdown of the human spirit.”

He provided detailed, forensic-like, analysis of the carnage a bomb left behind; vivid descriptions of mutilated bodies as a result of an explosion, and wrote graphic accounts of the frontlines. Robert wanted the readers and the viewers to know and see the ugliness of war and the undignified side of battles. War wasn’t about heroism; war was about death.

From about the age of 10, his father took him on an annual pilgrimage of the battlefields of the First World War. Robert had learned about the history of wars and military operations. But he also took it upon himself to learn about weapons. He studied arms and the companies that manufactured them. He could identify types and kinds of weapons from their sounds, their mark and models like a weapon’s expert.

Robert experienced war as a young reporter in 1970s, when he was based in Belfast to cover the Troubles in Northern Ireland for the London Times. He watched gun battles, the murder of civilians on the streets, and realised that armies and politicians lied and tried to hide the truth.

Northern Ireland shaped Robert’s thinking about reporting wars and the responsibility of a journalist, being on the ground, and telling it as it was.

Conor O’Clery, a close friend and colleague, just recently, recounted an anecdote about Robert from that period.

The story goes that Robert and a group of journalists were covering riots in Derry.

“As the tumult died down in the evening they retired to the City Hotel bar, telling their editors to ‘take PA’ if any updates were needed.” (The PA was the Press Association news agency, which had a designated reporter to provide updates).

While his colleagues took refuge at the bar, Robert “alone kept returning to the streets to file updates to the Times.”

Later on Robert saw the PA reporter, who

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The late Robert Fisk with his wife Nelofer Pazira at a wedding in the Lebanon in June 2019 had joined the crowd at the bar. “Shouldn’t you be out there?” Robert asked him. “It’s OK. I just told my desk to ‘take Times.’ ” In Conor’s words, “the joke was on Robert,” but it also showed Robert’s dedication to the work of a journalist as a witness – checking and re-checking sources, events and scene of massacres.

The experience of reporting and unearthing truth about the war in Northern Ireland turned Robert into a relentless anti-war reporter. But it wasn’t the frontlines, or reporting from dangerous places in the world, that distinguished him as a journalist. It was his knowledge of history, his moral stance against war, against injustice, combined with his courage, and the gift of writing that set him apart from the rest. For that, he was loved

and admired, envied and despised at the same time. He endured vicious attacks because he went against the trend and spoke truth to power.

There was never a time in more than four decades of his career that he wasn’t accused by one or the other side of being pro or anti, followed by a list of labels.

Robert treated them as intentional attempts to divert attention from the real issues. He didn’t mind criticism and often said that if there comes a day that his writing and work didn’t ruffle a few feathers, that would be the day he’d pack up and leave his work as a journalist. As long as reaction and criticism to his writing continued, he was reassured that he was doing his job.

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‘My WAVE work goes on’ Campaigner Alan McBride pays tribute to ‘tenacity, courage and the bravery’ of the victims who would not give up fight for compensation met with WAVE Trauma Centre campaigner Alan McBride in a room in Belfast city centre. It was a couple of weeks after innocent victims of the Troubles in Northern Ireland had been awarded compensation following a long battle over many years.

I asked Alan what were his feelings on the day it was finally announced that a compensation fund would be set up.

“There were times when we thought we’d never see it. I’m proud of the role I played, but I was even more proud of all those injured. Because without their tenacity, their courage, and their bravery, it wouldn’t have happened. And whilst I think of the people who died in our group and who never witnessed the compensation package, it was still a day of great rejoicing and the end of a 13-year journey.”

I asked Alan did he intend to keep working with WAVE or was he looking to go in another direction?

“No, my work with WAVE goes on,” replied Alan. “One of my biggest regrets in terms of the pension is that we were not able to anything for the bereaved.You’re only really legally eligible if you were injured, be it psychologically or physically.

And, of course, that will include some bereaved people but it doesn't include them all. I’m now campaigning in regard to getting some acknowledgement and financial redress for bereaved people.

“I’m also involved in a project where we are looking for 100 stories of kindness being shown to people, Catholic or Protestant, in the midst of the Troubles.”

Alan went on to talk about how 2021 had been a particularly difficult year for him personally. “My daughter Zoe turned 30 this year. That means she is older now than her mother, Sharon, who was killed in the Shankill Road bombing in 1993. That kind of brought it home to me in terms of how long Sharon has been dead, and the fact that she was a young person with her life in front of her, and how it was taken from her.”

At this point in the interview, Alan smiled as he recollected what Sharon had been like as a young woman (she was 29 years of age when she died).

“She was gorgeous,” he said. “She was a really beautiful woman, kind and considerate. She was the kind of woman that would have done anything for anybody.

And whilst that’s might be a bit of an old cliché, it’s still very true. Her relationship with her daughter was beautiful to watch.”

I asked Alan about his views on Northern Ireland and what the future might be like, especially with growing commentary about a possible border poll.

“I’ve always tried to be optimistic

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Alan McBride: ‘At the end of the day people in Northern Ireland have to share this little piece of the Earth’ when I’ve thought about Northern Ireland, although there has been times when they’ve been, you know, very sad,” replied Alan. “But my optimism looks as though it has been misplaced. I don’t think that we have made the kind of strides that I would have hoped that we would have made following the Good Friday Agreement. But at the end of the day, we have to learn to share this piece of the Earth.

“I’m not overly concerned which flag

flies over Belfast City Hall – whether it’s a Union Jack or a Tricolour, or even both of them. For me it’s all about the quality of your life.

“I was a very firm Remainer. I believe that Brexit will be bad for Northern Ireland. I hope that I’m wrong about that.

“I also have a strong British identity.

I would want it respected and recognised in terms of there ever being a United Ireland.”

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There is no greater travesty, there is no greater pain, than losing a child.

The death of a child changes everything Alan and Jennifer Roberts talk to Brian Pelan about the battle for truth about their nine-year-old daughter’s death in 1996 laire Roberts died at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children on October 23, 1996. She was just nine years of age. This year was the 25th anniversary of her death. Her parents, Alan and Jennifer, and brothers Gareth and Stuart, have had to endure years of struggle for the truth to be established about Claire’s death.

An inquest in 2019 found that her death was caused by the treatment she received in the hospital.

Claire’s death was also examined by the Hyponatraemia Inquiry, led by Mr Justice John O’Hara.

The 14-year inquiry into the deaths of five children in Northern Ireland’s hospitals found that four of them were avoidable.

Mr Justice O’Hara was critical of how the families were treated in the aftermath of the deaths and also of the evidence given to the inquiry by medical professionals.

He said that “doctors and managers cannot be relied on to do the right thing at the right time” and that they had to put the public interest before their own reputation.

He also said that some witnesses to the inquiry “had to have the truth dragged out of them”.

The Hyponatraemia Inquiry was first announced in 2004, following a TV documentary about the deaths of three children in Northern Ireland hospitals.

They died in separate incidents, but the programme alleged all three deaths – those of Lucy Crawford, Raychel Ferguson and Adam Strain – were a result of mistakes by staff as they administered intravenous fluids.

By 2008, the inquiry was extended to examine the cases of two more children –

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Claire Roberts Claire Roberts and Conor Mitchell – who died while receiving hospital care.

All five children died at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children (RBHSC) between 1995 and 2003.

I recently visited the home of Alan and Jennifer Roberts in east Belfast. We sat at a table in the living room. A framed picture of a smiling nine-year-old Claire sat nearby on a mantlepiece.

As a journalist, I have spoken to many families about loss and pain over the last 30-odd years. I have rarely encountered a couple as dedicated and eloquent as Alan and Jennifer.

I asked Alan how did the couple find the strength to keep going?

“We’re determined and we always have been determined to establish the truth,” replied Alan. “That has been our

goal since day one.

“We as a family put our trust in the health service. We put our trust in doctors.

And that trust has been denied. We have been misled as a family. When that happens to a family, parents will do all they can to establish the reasons and truth as to why their child has died. There is no greater travesty, there is no greater pain, than losing a child. The death of a child changes everything.

“And when you establish that there are errors and failures within the care management of that child, and when you find out that the death of that child was totally avoidable and wholly preventable, then you need to ask questions.

“We were told at the time that Claire had died a natural death and we had accepted that. Essentially for eight years Jennifer and I had lived as grieving parents and believing that everything possible had been done for our daughter.

“It wasn’t until 2004 when we watched the UTV Insight programme, When Hospitals Kill, to find that things, potentially, hadn’t been done right for Claire.”

When Mr Justice O’Hara published his report he said: “The unfortunate truth to be drawn from this inquiry is that there are too many people in the Health Service who place reputation before honesty and avoidance of blame before duty. All that is required is that people be told honestly what has happened and a legally enforceable duty of candour for individuals will not threaten those whose conduct is appropriate.”

He added: “I recommend that a duty of candour attach to individuals as well as organisations in the event of death or serious harm and that criminal

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Jennifer and Alan Roberts at their home in east Belfast sanctions should apply.”

I asked Alan why he thought implementing an individual duty of candour was so important?

“A duty of candour is a duty of honesty,” said Alan. “It’s a duty on doctors, and other health care professionals, to be open, honest and transparent with the patient and with the patient’s family. It’s very simple.

“In Northern Ireland, we currently do not have a legal requirement. There’s no legal requirement placed on an organisation, or on an individual working for that organisation, to ensure that openness and candour with the patient and family is provided.

“To put that bluntly, a doctor is under no legal duty to tell the truth about possible or known failures or shortcomings in a patient’s care management,” added Alan.

Northern Ireland’s current British Medical Association (BMA) chair, Dr Tom Black, said in a recent interview: “The reasons we have concerns about an individual duty of candour with sanctions is that when you look at every other country that has modern healthcare systems, they’ve all decided it’s a bad idea.

“It’s a bad idea because a blame and sanction culture creates more fear, more defensive practice and has the unintended consequence of making things worse.

“An organisational duty of candour is certainly something we think should be brought in as other countries have either brought it in or are about to bring it in.”

Alan Roberts voiced his objections to the concept of an individual duty of candour being described “as a bad idea”.

“We have a leading health organisation, the BMA, criticising the recommendations in a public inquiry

report as a ‘bad idea’. What sort of message is that sending out?” asked Alan.

“Not only to us as parents who have been through this travesty and who have been asking for honesty and truth.”

The Roberts family have had three death certificates. Only the final one was correct. Surely they and other families deserve an individual duty of candour? It is not about punishing health professionals. It is about making sure that the public has confidence about what happens to their loved ones when they are ill.

• A public consultation on establishing an organisational/individual duty of candour has concluded and a decision on whether a new law should be introduced now rests with Northern Ireland Health Minister Robin Swann.

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Erwin James served 20 years of a life sentence in prison for murder before his release in August 2004

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‘’ Give the prisoner a second chance for all our sakes Erwin James argues that prisons have never really been able to develop into places where ‘rehabilitation’ is the key purpose of the prisoner’s experience rison life in the UK has never been easy or primarily positive. Many would argue that neither should it be.

Indeed as a new Conservative MP in 2011 our current Justice Secretary Dominic Raab co-authored a book called After the Coalition, (jointly written with four other Conservatives including Priti Patel, now Home Secretary, and Liz Truss, now Foreign Secretary) – in which they called for a tougher approach to law and order.

“Punishment in the justice system,” they said, “is too often a dirty word … We are not ashamed to say that prisons should be tough, unpleasant and uncomfortable places. That’s the point of them. Once an offender has gone to prison they should not want to return.”

Raab and Co’s book implies that the prison experience in this country is not sufficiently punitive. But for decades the suicide rate has consistently been around 80 to 90 self-inflicted deaths each year (there were 79 in the year up to March this year). And incidents of self-harm have risen dramatically – in 2020 there were more than 55,000. Clearly for those people prison is more than sufficiently punitive.

It has long been the tradition in this country that people are sent to prison as punishment, not for punishment. Political rhetoric such as that of Raab’s and his colleagues, along with the sensationalist tabloid reporting of crime, has blurred this fundamental tenet so much so that our prisons have never really been able to develop into places where ‘rehabilitation’ is the key purpose of the prisoner’s experience. Even though it stands to reason that more rehabilitated people coming out of prison would mean fewer victims of repeat offenders. And the economic costs saved would be enormous.

The UK has one of the highest re-offending rates in western Europe.

Almost half, (48 per cent) of all released prisoners are reconvicted of another offence within a year. The prisons and probation system costs in the region of £4bn to run – 10 years ago the economic and social costs of reoffending by released prisoners was estimated by the National Audit Office (NAO) to be £15bn. I doubt any other CEO of a business running at

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such a loss would last long in the job.

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused significant disruption in the normal running of the prison system for sure. Regimes were reduced to almost no purposeful activity. Since mid-March 2020 the majority of prisoners have been kept locked in their cells for 23 hours a day, two-thirds in conditions that amount to solitary confinement, the other third sharing cells.

(Up to May 2021, 16,865 people in prison tested positive for Covid and there were 149 Covid-related prisoner deaths.)

But Covid aside, even under ‘normal’ circumstances our prisons are generally places of human corrosion and debilitation, with rife overcrowding and ever limited opportunities for personal growth and development. There are pockets of excellence, vocational and educational courses run by dedicated people who work often thanklessly to help prisoners to achieve better lives post-prison.

But the fact remains that anyone who makes it to a successful crime-free life after a stint inside in this country does so by chance rather than design.Yet still we keep piling people into these places. In 2020, over 40,000 people were sent to prison. Scotland and England and Wales have the highest imprisonment rates in western Europe. The prison population has risen by 74 per cent in the last 30 years and, according to the Ministry of Justice, is currently projected to rise by a further 20,000 by 2026. The National Audit Office,

however, states categorically that there is no link between the prison population and levels of crime.

Nevertheless there is a glimmer of hope, which comes, ironically from Dominic Raab himself – in his most recent speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester. Speaking about prisoners and former prisoners he said that more must be done if we are to be a “second chance” society and support people who have been to prison to turn their lives around. One of the most successful rehabilitative schemes in our prisons in the last 12 years, a true ‘pocket of excellence’, has been the introduction of the Clink charity catering training programme.

Raab spoke glowingly of the Clink’s work. “You may remember the Clink scheme, a restaurant set up at HMP High Down in 2009, training offenders in their kitchens to give them the skills to get a job when they are released,” he said. “The Clink now operates in eight prisons, and the prisoners who take part are a third less likely to re-offend, because if you give someone a job, if you give them something to lose they’re much less likely to return to crime. This year, I’m trebling the Clink scheme, and extending it to another 17 prisons.”

The only power able to reverse the negative results of our prisons is political power. Sadly for all of us there has never been the political will in this country to make the changes that could give us prison outcomes we can be proud of instead of constantly the opposite. But just maybe, despite his past praise for punishment, our new Justice Secretary will have the moral courage to build on his applause for the Clink’s success and start to turn the tide of misery and failure that has dominated our prison system for far too long.

Hate the crime, hate the criminal – but give the prisoner a second chance for all our sakes.

• Erwin James is Editor-in-Chief of Inside Time, the national newspaper for people in prison, and author of Redeemable, a Memoir of Darkness and Hope.

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