The Fight for Fair Housing!
At present, there are over 129,000 households across this island waiting on a home, and over 200,000 empty houses. Ireland’s housing woes could literally be solved at the stroke of a pen but vested interests in Leinster House and Stormont prevent this from happening.
In Stormont alone, at least 1 in 5 MLA’s are landlords, with similar numbers reflected in Leinster House, and we know that many more fail to, or deliberately do not register or declare their business interests, indeed, many prefer to have family members register on their behalf, as proxy agents. This shows the willingness of those that must be held to supposed ‘higher standards of account’ to circumvent their own ‘laws’ in the pursuit of profit.
The housing ‘crisis’ isn’t actually a crisis, it was designed this way in order to artificially inflate the incomes of Leinster House TD’s and Stormont MLA landlords like Sinn Féin’s Pat Sheehan or Jim Wells of the DUP. There is a deliberate scarcity of housing, pushing up need, and consequently pushing up rents. The only solution is to remove the profit motive from the housing economy, and to build a new system based on actual need with a focus on service and support – a public housing system.
The housing system across both failed states in Ireland is clearly not fit for purpose. What is needed is not reform or meaningless support mechanisms, but root and branch change of the housing market. On that basis, we support the immediate acquisition of all empty housing, particularly that which is used to churn out profit, to be placed into the hands of those who need it most – Stormont and Leinster House are clearly unwilling or unable to do this.
What is clear, is that when it comes to solving the chronic housing issue here, countless politicians and numerous governments have not only failed the people of Ireland, they haven’t even tried.
