PARNELL SQUARE EAST, DUBLIN

THE IRISH GOVERNMENT is considering a proposal that political leaders across the country each take an asylum seeker into their home, to help ease the pressure on housing and demonstrate that those on top are willing to shoulder the burdens weighing on those below them.

“It’s not going to solve the problem but it would be a sign that those in power at least recognize what’s happening,” says Fr Magnus Paul Plunkett, a Jesuit priest who runs a homeless hostel in Dublin’s inner city. “No pressure.”

“It’s an interesting plan,” says Ulrich Besserlieben, a PhD student whose thesis is Ireland’s Jewish policy before, during and after the Second World War. “I believe the Danish yellow star action maybe the template. When Danish Jews were told to wear a yellow star by the Nazis, the Danish King put one on and this was followed by the general population. In the end, the Danes managed to save all their Jews. By sending them to Sweden.”

“Sometimes leaders need to walk the walk,” says Noel Osteritee of the Houses Please Group. “Instead of spouting the usual self-serving guff, they need to actually lead.”