Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I wish to share time with Deputy Boyd Barrett.

We are debating the housing crisis. I have no faith in the market or the Government to solve this problem and, therefore, I would like to use my contribution to call on the trade union movement to organise a major national demonstration on the housing crisis and to use that to launch a nationwide protest campaign to force change on this issue. Last Christmas, we witnessed the occupation of Apollo House in Dublin city centre. Housing activists and homeless people joined forces to occupy a NAMA-owned property. The message was simple: this is the people's property, it should be used to benefit people's lives as should all NAMA properties nationwide. A court case was taken against the campaigners but nobody cared. The attitude of society was it was better to break the law than break the poor. The public support was massive. Hundreds of volunteers stepped forward within days and more than €150,000 in donations was collected within ten days. This public support was a vote of no confidence in the market and in the political establishment to solve the housing crisis. If that occupation had lasted just a small bit longer, it might well have created the space for big water charge-style protests in support.

One year on, the housing crisis is worse than ever. Market failure is even more glaring, as is Government failure so what happens now? The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, organises within its ranks 527,000 workers in this State. It is by far and away the largest organisation of working people in this country. ICTU members are among those who are crippled by rocketing rents and unaffordable mortgages, and who are spending tonight, in some cases, with their families in emergency accommodation. The trade union movement has a special responsibility towards young people. A total of 500,000 young adults in this State live at home with their parents, very many of them because they cannot afford to buy a home or rent a property. They are the locked out generation. The ICTU can and should name the date for a major national housing demonstration. Such a demonstration could demand the declaration of a national housing emergency, massive State investment to directly build social and affordable homes and a ban on economic evictions. It could also be the start for a national campaign which provides for a vehicle for those who want to organise and fight on this issue in every town and city up and down the country.

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