Hundreds of people gathered outside the Dáil on Tuesday evening as part of a demonstration urging the Government to take “urgent action” to address the housing crisis.
Sinéad Scully and Luke Murphy attended the Raise the Roof protest as they feel locked out of the housing market. Nearing their 30s, the couple moved in with Mr Murphy’s parents after two and half years renting to save for a mortgage deposit.
With a master’s degree and a PhD between them, Mr Murphy said they have another year or two of “hard saving” before they can move out.
“We’re both in very secure jobs and we’re in a position to save but we’re still not able to afford property in Dublin,” Ms Scully said.
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They don’t believe the Government is advocating on their behalf. “I think they think they’re doing a good job, but clearly they aren’t,” Ms Scully said.
She said programmes such as the Help To Buy scheme don’t have the intended effect when property prices are so high.
“I think it’s years and years of successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments … applying Band-Aid solutions to long-term problems,” Mr Murphy said.
Mother and son Ger Nolan and Evan Sheridan have always regarded housing as a pressing issue for the younger generation. “It wasn’t a worry I had at 16 or 18, but that’s the reality nowadays,” Ms Nolan said.
“Housing is where everything stems from. You need people to run services in the country and if they can’t afford to pay rent in Dublin, the city doesn’t function any more,” she said.
Mr Sheridan said “housing is a basic human right, it’s crazy how something as basic as a roof over your head is either too expensive or is seen as a luxury, and for many young people is a luxury”.
He believes the Government is making housing out “to be a lot more complicated than it actually is”, citing the €14 billion windfall tax from Apple last year as a reason why “funding is not an issue”.
Bernard Joyce, a representative of the Irish Traveller Movement, said “it’s really important that we’re all here together today”.
Mr Joyce said Irish Traveller women and children are disproportionately homeless, and called for “culturally appropriate accommodation which meets their community’s needs”.
Among the speakers were Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, Labour leader Ivana Bacik, Rory Hearne of the Social Democrats and People Before Profit’s Paul Murphy. There was a considerable presence of their supporters at the demonstration.
The speakers often emphasised what they see as the interconnected nature of social issues such as the housing crisis, economic inequality and discrimination against migrants.
The demonstration was organised by Raise the Roof, a broad coalition of trade unions, advocacy groups, NGOs, political parties and homelessness agencies.
It coincided with a Bill in the Dáil tabled by Sinn Féin, Labour, the Social Democrats, People Before Profit-Solidarity and the Green Party, as well as some left-wing independent TDs.
The Bill seeks to implement freezes and caps on rent prices, reintroduce a ban on no-fault evictions, and increase taxes on vacant and/or derelict properties and funding for homelessness agencies.
During the Dáil debate, Social Democrats housing spokesman Rory Hearne said the housing crisis has moved beyond an emergency to a “catastrophe”.
He said the Government is a continuation of previous administrations in power since 2011 and its policies have created a crisis “that is now causing a social catastrophe in terms of, in particular, the area of mental health”.
“When we look at the despair, the anxiety amongst half a million adults stuck in their parents’ bedrooms, unable to start an independent life, to get a home of their own, to start a family, to see a point at which they could actually begin their lives,” he said.
Labour’s housing spokesman Conor Sheehan said the Government’s proposals on RPZs will “effectively bake-in upward only rents”.
He said the measures raise the question as to “what this Government has against young people because it actually feels like ideological warfare against the youth of Ireland”.
Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin said the motion calls for a number of emergency actions to reverse the damage the Government has done.
“You need to take more direct action to support local authorities to bring vacant and derelict homes back into use,” he said, adding that a temporary emergency ban on no fault evictions should be introduced.
