{"id":456116,"date":"2026-05-19T05:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T05:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/456116\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T05:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T05:49:08","slug":"what-if-carers-and-the-homeless-drove-tractors-through-irelands-streets-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/456116\/","title":{"rendered":"What if carers and the homeless drove tractors through Ireland\u2019s streets? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sir, \u2013 The success of a country can be measured by how its marginalised are treated. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/government\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/government\/\">Government<\/a> figures for March showed there were 17,517 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/homeless-crisis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/homeless-crisis\/\">homeless<\/a> \u2013 11,946 adults and 5,571 children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The life expectancy in parts of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/dublin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/dublin\/\">Dublin<\/a>\u2019s north-inner city is just 61. (\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/health\/2026\/05\/15\/former-who-director-blown-away-by-low-life-expectancy-in-inner-city-dublin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/health\/2026\/05\/15\/former-who-director-blown-away-by-low-life-expectancy-in-inner-city-dublin\/\">Former WHO director \u2018blown away\u2019 by low life expectancy in inner-city Dublin<\/a>,\u2033 May 15th). <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">There are approximately 500,000 family carers in Ireland doing about 19 million unpaid hours per year, leading to an annual saving to the State of \u20ac20 billion. These carers can receive a heavily means-tested allowance that is generally accepted as inadequate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Our country\u2019s reliance on oil has added fuel to inflation and there is no sign of prices returning to normal in the short term. Following the fuel protests, Fintan O\u2019Toole <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/opinion\/2026\/04\/21\/fintan-otoole-government-spending-exchequer-fuel-protests-state-tax\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/opinion\/2026\/04\/21\/fintan-otoole-government-spending-exchequer-fuel-protests-state-tax\/\">in this newspaper, noted<\/a> that the Government would appear to respond to those with the ability to shout loudest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Maybe if the homeless, residents of Dublin\u2019s north-inner city and family carers were able to protest by driving Massey Fergusons on our nation\u2019s busy streets they would have a stronger bargaining position.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">How successful is Ireland now? \u2013 Yours, etc,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">SE\u00c1N \u00d3 TREASAIGH,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Teach Meal\u00f3g, <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Baile \u00c1tha Cliath 6W.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir, \u2013 The success of a country can be measured by how its marginalised are treated. Government figures&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[44403,171749,3663,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-456116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-carer-s-allowance","tag-fuel-protests","tag-homeless-crisis","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456116","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=456116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}