INTERVIEW
Prof. Conor O'Mahony
“We need to be angry” Fr Peter McVerry spoke to The Bar Review about his work among the most marginalised in society, and what needs to change to end inequality and solve the housing “catastrophe”. Ireland. The first issue was young people leaving school early and drifting into criminal behaviour. The Jesuits responded by setting up a youth club and employment scheme: “Then I came across a nine-year-old kid sleeping on the street, so we opened a hostel for boys up to the age of 16. Then the young
Ann-Marie Hardiman Managing Editor, Think Media Ltd.
people were leaving at 16 and going back onto the streets, so Dublin City Council gave us a flat in Ballymun as a hostel for over 16s. Then the drug problem hit Dublin, and we had 14 and 15 year olds coming to us, injecting heroin, so we opened a detox centre. Then we had to open a drug-free hostel
Fr Peter McVerry is probably one of the best known people in Ireland, and the
for the young people who had finished detox. Then the Child Care Act came
Trust that bears his name is equally famous for its work with the most
in and we had to separate the under 18s from the over 18s, so we had to open
marginalised in society. It comes as something of a surprise therefore to learn
another hostel. There was no big plan. We just went from year to year saying
that Peter completed a degree in chemistry and maths at UCD, taught part-time
‘what do we have to do next?’”
in institutes of technology, and once considered a career in academia. He also
The Arrupe Society, later renamed as the Peter McVerry Trust, is now one of
looked to the Jesuit order’s mission in Zambia as a possible path, but all of that
the leading providers of services to homeless people in Ireland, with 25 hostels
changed when he went to live and work in Summerhill in Dublin’s north inner
in Dublin and Kildare providing emergency accommodation to almost 1,000
city in 1974: “That totally changed my life. Two things shocked me. The first was
people every night. The Trust also now provides around 500 permanent homes,
the conditions in which people lived. Much of the housing was old tenement
and operates six drug and alcohol treatment centres, a drop-in centre, and two
buildings from the 1800s divided into flats. Some of the houses had one outside
small schools.
toilet for eight families. Parents would tell you of waking up in the morning and
This expansion also came with increasing financial and regulatory responsibility,
finding a rat on their child's cot. Unemployment was at about 80%. The second
which was taking Peter away from the work he wanted to do – working directly
thing that shocked me was that I had been living in Dublin for the previous 15
with homeless people – so the Trust appointed CEO Pat Doyle in 2005: “He's
years and I had no idea that people lived in such conditions. That affected me a
very competent, very efficient, very compassionate, and he has expanded this
lot – my ignorance. I think that runs through the whole of society”.
organisation to where it is today in a way that I could never have done”.
A growing need
Prevention and intervention
The evolution of the work that Peter began in 1974 reflects in many ways the
Working so closely with people who have become homeless gives Peter a
social change that has taken place in inner city Dublin, and elsewhere in
unique insight into the underlying causes, and the measures that would make
THE BAR REVIEW : Volume 27 Number 3 - June 2022
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