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Displaying items by tag: Homelessness

#DublinPort - A plan by Dublin City Council (DCC) to house up to 150 people on a rented cruise ship is been considered to help tackle the housing crisis.

The local authority writes The Irish Times, had explored renting a cruise ship from a private operator, to house between 100 and 150 single homeless individuals, before shelving the idea.

In early September, DCC chief executive Owen Keegan told Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy the plan could be “revisited” to help deal with the ongoing homelessness crisis.

Mr Keegan was responding to letters sent by Mr Murphy to the four Dublin local authorities, setting targets to provide additional homeless family hub accommodation and beds for rough sleepers. The correspondence was released to The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act.

For further reading the newspaper reports here, including coverage on up to 10,000 people that took part in the #RaiseTheRoof protest on the housing crisis in Dublin yesterday.

Published in Dublin Port

About Commander Bill King, Solo Circumnavigator

William Donald Aelian King was the last surviving submarine commander in the Second World War - in charge of the British Navy's T-class Telemachus that sank a Japanese sub in the Strait of Malacca, between Malaysia and Sumatra, in 1944.

Decorated many times for his service by the end of the war, King became a trailblazing solo sailor.

At the age of 58, he was the oldest participant in The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race sailing Galway Blazer II, a junk-rigged schooner he designed himself.

After a number of abortive attempts, including an incident with "a large sea creature", he finally completed his solo circumnavigation of the globe in 1973.

Beyond his aquatic escapades, King settled with his wife Anita (who died in 1984, aged 70) at Oranmore Castle outside Galway after the war, where he later developed a pioneering organic farm and garden to help tackle his wife's asthma.

The round-the-world sailor and Galway native Bill King died on Friday, 21 September, 2012, aged 102.