All this week, The Lunchtime Show has focussed on one aspect of the homelessness crises: Families who end up homeless because their rent allowance no longer covers the rent.

People like Danielle Dwyer, who has to send her three kids to their grandparents while she spends her days trying to find a hotel for the night.

As I was listening to the heartbreak, my thoughts turned to politics and the tiny chance I have of influencing it... my vote. While I rant and rave about things, I am, at heart a democrat. I believe in what most people call ‘parliamentary democracy’. On the rare occasions that I fail to vote, I know I have no right to comment on anything political until the next election.

I used my vote in 2011. I wanted a new start. I was not alone as the nation shared my sense of wanting to wipe the slate clean. Begin again in the hope of rebuilding something that would sustain itself. A fair society so to speak. You can guess the things that matter to me. A working health service. An inclusive education system. An integrated transport system that works. Social protection that centres on the person.

I am old enough to understand that these thing do not come cheap. That’s why I pay taxes. That’s why I understand the need for paying for water or having a local property tax or a bin charge. Services cost money and, within reason, I’m willing to pay.

In return for this, I expect a level of competence in those who frame the policies that mold our lives. I want to see well thought out policies being championed by competent politicians who understand the trust I put in them when I place my 1,2,3 on the ballot paper.

In the first two years of this government, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. They were fire-fighting. Their hands seem tied by the agreement with the Troika. Once they left, Enda pronounced we were in control again.

OK guys, so govern.

We had the cabinet re-shuffle. A new start.

What did we get? We got the huge bandwagon that is Irish water and we now seem to have a boom in rents that screams like a Celtic Tiger. At the centre of both stands Alan Kelly.

I do not know the man. I only know his ministerial self. That’s what I want to talk about. As the homeless crisis gets worse and worse, he can not be found. Colleagues bombard his office looking for interviews. Of course he is entitled to a summer break but the man has gone AWOL since June. Until yesterday.

"People like Danielle Dwyer appear to be statistics that must go through cabinet sub-committees."

We finally got a statement last night. I’ll just quote the last paragraph to you.

"In addition Minister Kelly has recently tasked a senior group of officials in his Department with urgently examining the emerging issues with a view to preparing a comprehensive and significant plan in response to the evolving homeless situation for early presentation to the Cabinet Sub-Committee."

What does that mean? A holding statement? A department trying to show it is in control?

I don't know.

The one thing it doesn't show is any human feeling. It comes from an ivory tower. People like Danielle Dwyer are statistics that must go through cabinet sub-committees.

She isn’t a statistic. She is a human being sucked down by a system. A system that can be fixed by politicians.

For one moment on Monday, my vote seemed a wasted one. All the hope had vanished. I was entering a vacuum.

Vacuums are dangerous places. Anything could fill them. Any party can fill them. My vote can not be wasted next time around.

People matter.