Thousands join protest in Dublin over housing crisis
Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Dublin in the latest campaign to highlight Ireland’s housing crisis.
The protest was organised by the National Homeless and Housing Coalition, a collective group of campaigners that includes unions and homeless activists, who are calling for better housing conditions in Ireland.
It comes days after the Housing Department released its homeless figures for October, which now stands at 9,724, a rise of 26 people.
Protesters gathered at the Garden of Remembrance before making their way through the city.
Tina McVeigh, People Before Profit co-chairperson, said that the homeless figures released earlier this week are “only the sharp edge of the wedge”.
“The policies of this Government only help the vulture funds, the landlords and developers.
“They do not help the people and they do not build the public homes that we need to house our people. People are disgusted.
“We are demanding radical action and we are back out on the streets to remind them that we are still here. We are not going away.
“(Housing Minister) Eoghan Murphy and Fine Gael tried to tell us that everything was OK. They talk about the economy and they want us to think we all have highly paid jobs. They want us to believe that everything is OK. We are saying it’s not OK.
“We can’t talk about things being OK when they are 3,725 children that will spend this Christmas in emergency accommodation.”
The protest comes two months after 10,000 people gathered outside Leinster House for the Raise the Roof Rally.
Brian McLoughlin from Inner City Helping Homeless said that up to 15,000 people took part in Saturday’s protest.
“People are out on the streets for the simple reason that crisis has reached a national emergency level,” he said.
“In the last four years the number of children facing Christmas in emergency accommodation has gone up 450%.
“There hasn’t been enough public housing being built on public land and people have had enough.
“As the months go on people are starting to realise that it’s a much bigger problem.
“The coalition is putting viable solutions together and it’s up to the Government to take them on board but so far it hasn’t happened.”
Amazing turnout at the #HomesForAll demonstration called by the National Homeless & Housing Coalition. Estimates of 15,000-20,000. This is a growing movement of people power. Kick out the landlord parties!
— Tina MacVeigh 🇵🇸 (@TinaMacVeigh) December 1, 2018
Alibhe Smyth, activist and co-director of the Together For Yes campaign, also addressed the crowd saying: “This is a profound injustice that is being done to so many people, to families, to single parent families, to young and old.
“We are dealing not just with a crisis but with a tragedy of major proportions and we will not stand for it.”
Earlier: Housing protest to take place in Dublin as 'children facing into Christmas in emergency accommodation'
Housing campaigners will stage a mass protest in Dublin today to send a message to the government on the housing crisis.
The National Homelessness and Housing Coalition march is set to begin at the Garden of Remembrance at 2pm.
Organisers say they expect tens of thousands of people to join them, with more than 80 different groups represented.
There are currently nearly 10,000 people officially homeless in Ireland, nearly 4,000 of these are children facing Christmas in emergency accommodation.
There has been a 450% increase in the number of homeless children in the last four years alone.
Anthony Flynn, of Dublin's Inner City Helping Homeless, said that it is time to say enough is enough:
"The crisis has continued to escalate without any proper political will by the government to address the problem. 10,000 are now homeless on the official numbers, the real figure likely stands at 20,000 or more and the figures being released monthly by the Minister are completely disingenuous.
"We shouldn’t have so many children facing into Christmas in emergency accommodation, some for the second Christmas in a row.
"We're no longer going to accept the housing crisis that we have right across the country.
We have an epidemic when it comes to homelessness. We have a shortage of housing and we've rising rents and we've people that are being marginalised due to the housing crisis at the moment.
"We're asking people to come out in their droves today to send a clear message to the government that this is no longer acceptable."
