Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The Government says there is no housing emergency. What world is it living in? In this country, figures today show that rents have risen by 14% in the past 12 months, the largest increase ever recorded by daft.ie. We know the average rent is 120% higher than in 2011. There are 11,000 people homeless, more than 3,000 of whom are children. There are 166,000 properties sitting vacant, 50,000 of which have been vacant for at least six years. The crisis is an absolute catastrophe for ordinary people in this country, except those for whom it is an opportunity. They are not ordinary people, but rather developers, landlords and those sitting on properties who are making massive profits.

Responsibility for the housing crisis, emergency and catastrophe does not lie with people who are fleeing war and persecution. Rather, it lies with developers who are, in many cases, sitting on vacant land and the big corporate landlords who are hiking rent as much as they can. It lies with all of those who are acting to maximise their profits. It lies with the Government that presides over a system which encourages all of that.

I am sure some of those big landlords and developers are delighted to see some protests targeting refugees and saying they are responsible for the crisis because that takes attention away from them. It is divide and rule, the oldest tactic in the book. Instead, we need to unite ordinary people, regardless of their colour or where they come from, come together and fight for homes for all, bring rents down, use vacant properties and build public homes. That is why we should be on the streets this Saturday at 1 p.m. at Parnell Square.

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