![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/president-attends-anniversary-event-for-veterans-homeless-charity.jpg\")
The president addressed the charity following a guard of honour (Niall Carson\/PA)<\/p>\nPresident Catherine Connolly has attended an event marking the 75th\u00a0anniversary of a veterans\u2019 homeless charity.<\/p>\n
The Organisation of National Ex-Service Personnel (Oglaigh Naisiunta na hEireann), known as ONE, marked the anniversary with a ceremony in Cathal Brugha Barracks in Rathmines, Dublin, on Saturday.<\/p>\n
ONE provides a number of services, particularly for homeless veterans and those that need mental health support.<\/p>\n
The president addressed the charity following a guard of honour (Niall Carson\/PA)<\/p>\n
The charity has homes for homeless veterans in Athlone, Cobh, Dublin and Letterkenny which provide 51 single bedrooms.<\/p>\n
The 75th Anniversary of ONE coincides with the commencement of phase two of its Veteran Home Expansion Plan with the addition of 17 single en-suite bedrooms across three new homes in Cork, Limerick and Newbridge.<\/p>\n
Connolly said: \u201cSince 1951, the Organisation of National Ex-Service Personnel has played a vital role assisting veterans of our Defence Forces, providing essential professional services, including mental health and homeless services.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth of these issues \u2013 homelessness and mental healthcare \u2013 require urgent attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must constantly raise awareness across our society to ensure that the motto of the Organisation of National Ex-Service Personnel \u2013 no veteran left behind \u2013 becomes the lived reality for those who served in our Defence Forces.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chief executive officer of ONE Cormac Kirwan said: \u201cHomelessness and mental health challenges have now become part of our common language but in doing so, they may have unfortunately lost some of their true meaning.<\/p>\n
Both of these issues, homelessness and mental healthcare require urgent attention<\/p>\n
Catherine Connolly<\/p>\n
\u201cThe blunt reality is that it is about being without shelter, or compassion, or care, or hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new facilities will directly enable ONE to provide homeless veterans with a safe, secure and supportive space, warm meals, camaraderie, care and hope, for as long as it is needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ceremony included a veterans guard of honour to welcome the President and an address by her.<\/p>\n
She said one of the driving forces behind the establishment of the charity 75 years ago had been a housing crisis.<\/p>\n
Connolly said: \u201cIt is now 75 years later and we are suffering yet another housing crisis, 17,112 people, including 5,319 children residing in emergency accommodation in January of this year. The figure has probably risen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Catherine Connolly has attended an event marking the 75th\u00a0anniversary of a veterans\u2019 homeless charity. The Organisation of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-371077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}