"THERE are some problems to which there are no solutions, some questions for which there are easy answers."

Alice begins her book about in Ireland with these. She ends it with a challenge decision makers to take a view "of the needs, goodness, problems of homeless people difficulties in working with.

At parameters within which a decision maker must work, these two points neatly encompass the challenge of tackling homelessness are intractable problems that policy, no matter how well defined can resolve. Yet that fact of demands a political response that is wide and perceptive enough to resolve problems that can be resolved.

Since taking office, I have concentrated on a number of key issues as outlined in the Government of Renewal Programme. Homelessness is one of them. At the end of 1995 I launched a new initiative on homelessness. It is based on the premise that no one has all the answers but that many answers can come out of good partnership between the voluntary and statutory sector.

It is also based on an understanding that homelessness is about more than just a warm bed for the night, important and all as a warm bed is. Homelessness, as Alice says, is a state of mind as well as a lack of shelter.

I have learnt this from visiting the places of shelter and from listening to the different organisations working with the homeless. Each in its own way presents the case for a holistic approach. This is not simply a housing problem, it is about proper health care, about unemployment, about family disruption, about addiction, about self esteem and the lack of it.

The stereotype is no longer valid of the aging, single homeless man. Today we are talking as much about young people, often with chronic addition, families or women with children.

So we need settlement programmes, day supports and outreach services to enable people to develop out of homelessness and into a more settled way of life.

For these services to develop fully, good management is required, particularly good financial management.

Already the pattern of service provision is intricate and varied. Each voluntary body has its own ethos, its own characteristic response, its individual answer to a need.

That diversity of response is as impressive as the sheer dedication of its workers. But that creates its own challenge to ensure that appropriate measures to meet today's and tomorrows homeless population are developed in a streamlined and effective fashion.

ONE of the biggest obstacles has been the fragmentation of statutory authority been government departments and between local authorities and health boards.

The initiative I have launched is designed to provide a framework in which the partnership between voluntary and statutory is strengthened. It co ordinates the work of the relevant departments, Environment and Health. It provides some funding for the development of support services. It allows for a more streamlined and better administered service.

And it is only possible because Dublin Corporation and the Eastern Health Board have shown a serious commitment to making a fresh start. The overall concept is only being realised because the voluntary sector painstakingly and determinedly kept pointing to a new and better way of doing things.

This is a beginning rather than an end of a political response a response based on ideas presented by those who work with the homeless, those who can teach us all, whether decision makers or not, to take the wider view.