Broken society: Family living in shed is a sign Dublin is teetering on the edge

Silently, this family has fallen through the many cracks that lie in the fundamental foundations of our system.

After decades of neglect, Dublin is a city in existential crisis - and the plight of the nameless, desperate family in the shed is the embodiment of the worst of our failings.

Theirs is the story of the "other" Dublin - the shadow behind the headlines of full employment and "Big Tech", of glossy housing developments and of the lost-sheep-like heralding of returning emigrants.

But there are plenty of other headlines, too, that speak of rampant homelessness corralled - if at all - by inadequate emergency accommodation. Of choking traffic gridlock, of impoverished families, of the healthcare crisis that leaves vulnerable elderly people languishing on hospital trolleys.

They tell of a Dublin with an ageing and overwhelmed water system, matched by tattered hospitals bursting at the seams.

Of how vulnerable Irish emigrants returning to this country are experiencing poverty, homelessness, isolation, mental and physical health needs.

Of a place where a five-year-old child eats his dinner off a sheet of cardboard on a city street.

The Dublin of 2019 is a story of a creaking capital, scarcely able to cope. Nothing seems to work.

Beset on all sides by problems that crop up again and again like some terrible game of whack-a-mole - from healthcare to traffic, housing to childcare, school places to public transport - it is hard to know whether we are making any headway at all in tackling this myriad of situations.

"It's not glamorous to invest in water," says Richard Guiney, CEO of DublinTown. "But it's something that has to be done."

Meanwhile, younger generations will want to live closer to city centres - and so planners need to be thinking about schools and play facilities nearby, he says.

"This is something very frustrating. We don't plan things properly and think about what's going to be required. We don't future-proof."

In the meantime, with rents in the city centre an average of a staggering €2,000 a month, living in the commuter belt might seem like a better option.

But it too has its own challenges.

At busy Maynooth station, as the evening rush home begins to build and the rain begins to fall, Angela Winder tells how her son started a new job in Dublin in September, travels up on the 7.15am service and back down on the 4.50pm home.

"He pays €900 a year for his annual ticket and I can say that he has never had a seat - either going up in the morning or on the way home," she says.

Iarnród Éireann wants to order 41 new carriages but they will take two years to deliver. It could be late 2021 before an expansion of the service is seen.

Ruth Edwards of Dublin Chamber of Commerce, who alights at Maynooth, tells how she specifically altered her working hours in order to suit the train time schedules.

Originally from Dublin, she moved out with her husband to a house near Enfield in 2004.

Since that time, Dublin city has become much, much busier.

"It used to be really quiet in the mornings. Now, the lights are on in all the houses and everybody is up."

"Una città vivibile," is the Italian phrase for a liveable city, says Michael Taft, researcher with Siptu. He believes Dublin matches up "very poorly" to this description.

"We were naive in expecting Dublin to grow and everything else to stay the same size - roads, housing, social infrastructure and schools," he says.

"Everybody was going for growth - before the crash and after the recovery. But growth creates its own problems."

Increasing prosperity means nothing if you're spending it all on rent and childcare, he says, adding that the real issue is quality of life.

He points to childcare as a particular burden for families - which is well over twice, and sometimes treble, the cost of childcare in other cities in the EU.

The challenges facing us are "depressing", he concedes.

"But they're not natural phenomena like the weather - they are solvable."

"We can't fix it all at once, but we can make inroads on the major issues such as housing and childcare which would be a very big thing for young families - and certainly a substantial increase in public transport capacity would help.

"We need to get the feeling we are on the right path because right now people don't know if we are."

He warns that if we don't do anything about these problems, we will pay in the price of life quality, adding: "Something has to give."

In a signal of urgent problems within the healthcare system, the master of Dublin's Rotunda Hospital this week said the lives of newborn babies were at risk due to the overcrowding crisis.

Stephen McMahon, of the Irish Patients' Association, describes this as "a frightening development" - showing that even newborn babies are not immune to the crisis within our healthcare system.

"Sometimes I wonder if it's the physical infrastructure that's creaking or if it's the public service structure that's out of date. Maybe it needs structural reform to meet the needs of a modern society," he says.

In Balbriggan, a consultation is taking place at the Aster Family Resource Centre to address childcare.

Balbriggan is officially the youngest town in Ireland, with 12.2pc of the population under the age of five - yet the town has the lowest rate of community-based childcare in the country.

They can cater for 1067 children but 301 children are on waiting lists for services, explains Adeline O’Brien, CEO of Empower, which works closely with the Aster Centre to provide services in Balbriggan.

Last month, the centre set up a homework club for 12 children, eight of whom are homeless. It’s two days a week - but the children would love it every day.

Family support worker Amber Entwistle tells how the current housing crisis is worse than the recession for some vulnerable families.

"Some people are ashamed to get help because they're afraid of being reported and losing their children," she says, adding that proper childcare can make a massive difference in people's lives. "Sometimes it's the only hot meal the children will have all day," she says.

Anita Doolan, a single mother from Balbriggan, tells how in 2010 she had to drop out of a business and IT course because of the cost of childcare.

"It was very frustrating and depressing," she explains.

Once her children were reared, she went back to education and now works with the Balbriggan Integration Forum.

"My family can see the change in me. I'm happy and I feel like I'm helping other people," she says.