The Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Rev John Neill, has asked whether "there is anything imaginative that can be done in our own local communities for the young couples trying to establish a home and yet who cannot possibly afford a house or flat in which they will have any privacy of their own?"
In an Easter message, he continued: "Can anything more be done by us all, churches included, to provide resources for young adults who in their boredom and lack of direction are drawn into a sub-culture of drug dependency? Can a fresh start be made by society as a whole on the issue of alcohol abuse?" He said that "if we fail to address such issues, we behave as if life is cheap. The resurrection points to the exact opposite, that life is full of potential for transformation," he said.
In an Easter reflection, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Dr Seán Brady, noted that the "great stories of our faith have all taken place in gardens. In the Garden of Eden, God walked with man in the cool of the day, and all was harmony and ease until the power of evil entered human hearts. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus took on that power of evil and seemed to be overcome by the treachery and injustice of the world."
But in the garden of the empty tomb, he said, God gave his answer: "Christ has died, Christ is risen and Christ will come again."