Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
Getting off the bus in O’Connell Street, considered the main street in Dublin, can be a shock for tourists and people new to the city alike. In between the new hotels and shopping centres, the decay in the older buildings is clearly visible, which is sad for such an otherwise […]
As we approach the middle of winter the number of homeless people in Ireland climbs above 10,000, more than 3,000 of whom are children. The number of homeless people has grown by 2,593 since august 2021 and by 237 since July this year. In whose interest is it to […]
The housing crisis will not be solved by treating the symptoms. The root cause—the Government’s political strategy of transferring the provision of homes to the private sector—is the problem that has to be tackled if we are to solve this crisis permanently. This requires a sustained national building campaign by […]
Not too long ago I found myself in Rathdrum, a beautiful town in Co. Wicklow. While I had a lovely time, I noticed that a lot of buildings were vacant, with areas of the town centre feeling deserted at times. Unfortunately, Rathdrum is not unique in this regard. Ireland has […]
This is not the first time the citizens of Ireland have been faced with a housing emergency. Back in the 1930s and 40s it was solved by building public housing—and it can be done again. From the 1930s until the 1950s, 55 per cent of all housing was built by […]
On Wednesday 13 April residents of the Devanny housing estates held a protest in their area and expressed their continued anger at Dublin City Council and the planners involved in this quango as these bodies seek to privatise more public lands. There was a good turn-out by residents, local political […]
Government housing policy is the cause of the housing crisis. Homelessness, waiting-lists and extortionate levels of private rent are the symptoms of policy designed to benefit speculators, landlords, and hedge funds—the business class. The number of homes available to rent has fallen close to a historical record, while rents have […]
Government housing policy is the cause of the housing crisis. Homelessness, waiting-lists and extortionate private rent levels are the symptoms. Universally accessible public housing is the cure, the solution, to permanently end the housing crisis. Government housing policy works very well for those it is designed to benefit: the speculators, […]
At the beginning of September the coalition government published its long-awaited final, final, final housing strategy, “Housing for All,” to solve the deepening housing crisis. Thousands are on local authority housing lists, and tens of thousands are trapped in rising rents which are completely unsustainable from the renter’s point of […]
A house is not just a building made of bricks and concrete: it’s a nest made of dreams and memories. When such a place crumbles in front of one’s eyes it is heartbreaking. Approximately five thousand families have faced the heartbreak because of the mica issue, which caused cracks in […]
The crisis in housing is official Government policy. It is not an unintended consequence. The profit margins of the various corporate property funds that have entered the Irish housing market since 2013 require a crisis, in the supply of both public housing and affordable housing for purchase, leading to a […]
The moratorium on evictions was lifted on 23 April, placing the fate of thousands of renters affected by this pandemic firmly back into the hands of landlords. The government has clearly shown that it cares more for the rights of the propertied classes during an economic and public health crisis […]
The mantra “You need to own your own house” or to “get on the property ladder” has great appeal in the Irish psyche. Young couples will queue outside building sites for days to get their “dream home.” While they wait, and it makes the evening news, the original price of […]
Housing policy in both jurisdictions in Ireland has failed the citizens abysmally. One of the sources of communal revolt in the North was the unfair distribution of housing. As only ratepayers and their spouses had a vote in local elections, priority in housing was given to the unionist community, to allow them to control the councils.
In 2019 there were 37,859 applicants on the social housing list in the north of Ireland. 26,387 of those were deemed to be in priority need of housing, described as housing stress; 74 per cent of those were considered officially homeless. These grim statistics are compounded by the fact that […]
The Community Action Tenants’ Union (CATU) is Ireland’s only union organised within the community you are living in—in the same way that a trade union branch is based within a workplace. CATU members come together to combat not only issues concerning tenancy but anything that affects the whole community, such […]