Large crowds gathered outside the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin city on Saturday afternoon as part of an all-island housing demonstration urging the Government to act on the crisis.
Led by the Community Action Tenants Union (CATU), and backed by more than 80 other trade unions and organisations, protesters marched through the city centre towards Molesworth Street.
Oisín Doyle (28) and Cian Lawler (25) – who both live at home with their parents – travelled from Co Carlow to take part.
Reflecting on the difference between his own housing situation and that of his parents’ generation, Mr Doyle said he “would like to get back to a place where we can prioritise housing as a basic need and right for people and not something that’s just for the rich”.
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“I was living up in Dublin with a friend for a while but had to move back because the rent was too expensive. My dad was a civil servant and owned a home at the age of 23 in Dublin. It was just a completely different world.”
For Mr Lawler, owning a home in the future “seems completely inaccessible”.
“I think it’s disgraceful that we’re viewed as a progressive and rich country but we have so many families homeless, so many people in direct provision, people in asylum that come here for a better life and are forced into these dire situations,” he said.
“All these vulture funds are allowed to come into this country and suck the life out of it. Our cities are dying.”
Catherine Dineen (25) has been renting for the past seven years.
“It takes up more than half of my income every month and it’s quite depressing to face into the future knowing that I probably won’t be able to afford a house unless I work a corporate job that I don’t really like,” she said.
Traveller advocacy group Pavee Point was one of the organisations represented at Saturday’s protest. Director Martin Collins describes Ireland’s housing issues as “a humanitarian crisis”.
“For the Traveller community, we’ve always had an accommodation crisis. We’ve been let down by this State over many, many decades. We are disproportionately represented in the homeless numbers.”
Mr Collins said racism towards Travellers and Roma people poses an additional challenge in the search for housing.
“Many private landlords are not renting out to Travellers and Roma so the private sector is not even an option for us. The strategy and the response has to be more social and public housing. The Government and successive governments have failed in this regard.”
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Stephen Curran (32), a member of CATU’s housing demonstration subcommittee and communications officer for one of its north Dublin branches, grew up living in social housing in the suburb of Coolock.
Now renting in Phibsborough, he said the housing crisis has “forced people like myself into the private market”.
“The place I was renting when I was in college was about a quarter the cost of what I have now. The standard was so much better,” he said.
“Communities are developed when people can go somewhere and put roots down and that’s why we need an eviction bam. That’s why we need rents to be affordable.”
Speakers from CATU’s national branches emphasised what they see as the interconnectedness of social issues such as the housing crisis, discrimination against migrants and economic inequality.
