Workers Solidarity Movement

You can always tell when there’s an election just round the corner. Investment announcements, over grinning politicians in the press looking for another go only this time they REALLY promise things will be better. Others hoping to be elected doing all sorts just to get their photograph in the papers, again promising us the moon and the stars. However the gloves are off in Derry’s Bogside as news filters out that a sizeable section of social housing stock, currently owned by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE), now plan to offer them up for sale to private sector housing bodies.

Several hundred residents now fear that private housing associations in the city will totally transform the way in which they have engaged with the Housing Executive over the past four decades. Particularly when it comes to levels of rent and of course allocation of housing which first gave birth to a new generation of street politics and the Civil Rights Association back in the late sixties.

Huge numbers of people are now effectively homeless as they are unable to find somewhere stable to rent. Fortunately only a minority have been forced onto the streets so far, Dublin's hotels are full of families on 3 day rotation emergency accommodation. In some hotels such families are not allowed to use the front entrance. Thousands of others are forced to move into already overcrowded accommodation, perhaps with parents or friends. Yet more are coach surfing, moving around as they exhaust the charity of friends. And a growing number are sleeping on the streets or in tents, van and cars in park and industrial estates.

The families who were being housed in an emergency accommodation facility on 54-55 Mountjoy street and were to be evicted today have been fighting back. Yesterday afternoon they occupied the DCC offices, demanding that officals talk to them collectively.  And this morning they occupied the buidling they are being evicted from, hanging banners from the upper floor as a solidarity protest took place below.

Over the last week the massive abandoned Grangegorman complex has been reoccupied by squatters including many of those who were eviced last year.  As our video shows after the High Court injunction last year the owners who took posession did nothing to bring this huge area back into use for housing.  The sole interest seems to have been in selling it, recently it was sold and when the new owners didn't bother with the 24 hour security on site it was reoccupied.

Some 30 people had been living in the various buildings that make up the Grangegorman complex prior to the High Court injunction.  The injunction ment that those 30 all had to try and find alternative accommodation as a time when the housing crisis in Dublin has deepened and rents have soared above levels affordable even to someone earning two times the minimum wage.

On the 18th of February, 13 families who were being housed in an emergency accommodation facility on 54-55 Mountjoy street were handed an eviction notice, ending their tenancy in just 8 days time.

The stated reason for the eviction was an increase in the property’s rent, which DCC claim they will be unable to supply. As the residents are in emergency accommodation, they do not receive protection under the tenants’ rights law.

Monday saw an eviction without court order in Dublin involving Garda and private security / builders at Villa Park, Dublin 7.  The house had been left abandoned for at least two years according to  neighbours before being brought back into use last October by people who needed a home.  One of them told us that it was a “Beautiful house that was to be demolished in order to make a new route to warehouse / bakery behind it but neighbours objected and planning permission was refused.  The person claiming ownership seemed to be very wealthy and is listed as a director of over 28 companies.”

The Barricade Inn is up in the High Court today as a legal firm seek to evict one of the most interesting spaces to grace Dublin city centre in the last months. Whether the courts find for a group of people with no funds or a law company will tell you a lot about the sort of country you live in. A country where thousands are homeless while 300,000 homes lie empty.  The video was shot outside yesterday evening as we helped to move materials inside to a secure location ahead of the court hearing.  The statement that follows was released by The Barricade Inn yesterday.