“Smash Landlords and Vultures – Universal Social Housing Now!”

On August 19, 2025August 19, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Housing Struggle, Human Rights, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political Analysis, Socialist Revolution, SongLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The Irish socialist Republican group Anti-Imperialist Action today issued a call to revolution centred around a need for universal social housing to resolve the chronic housing crisis in Ireland (and in particular in Dublin).

This housing crisis has at January’s count left nearly 15,300 living on the streets or in emergency accommodation¹ with another unknown number in inappropriate accommodation such as sofa-surfing with friends and relatives or in IPAS centres for refugees.

Rampant property speculation has made a handful of bankers and speculators very rich and along with the social misery of thousands, facilitated the demolition of buildings of historical and architectural importance and their replacement by usually unsightly glass and concrete.²

Well, so what of AIA’s call? Different organisations make various calls at different times but do they have any effect? However, this one has some important distinctions, one of which is that this organisation actively practised its preaching when it called for the occupation of empty properties.

In May 2022 the AIA founded a sub-group called Revolutionary Housing League that occupied empty buildings in Dublin, refused to comply with court orders³ to evacuate or, in court, to agree to bail conditions that they would desist from further building occupations.

*‘James Connolly House’ in occupation by the RHL in May/ June 2022.* Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The first building targeted on May 1^st was a former Seamen’s Institute building on Eden Quay, renamed Connolly House, metres from O’Connell Bridge, empty for years since the Salvation Army, a religion-based charity NGO, had lost government funding for its youth homeless accommodation project.

On the morning of June 9^th 2022 over a hundred Gardaí, with an armed unit on standby and a helicopter overhead, stormed the building⁴ and arrested the only occupants, two RHL supporters. In court later that day, they were bailed without making any promise not to re-occupy buildings.⁵

It seemed that the State was sensitive to the dangers of creating martyrs around the housing crisis.

Instead, RHL renewed its call for mass action across the country to occupy empty buildings. And went on to occupy other buildings, including Ionad Sean Heuston near the eponymous Bridge and another in Belvidere Road, eviction here also including massive police forces and helicopter.

Seen from the north bank of the Liffey, the Starry Plough flag flying high over the ‘Ionad Sean Heuston’ occupied building. The Heuston train station is behind the photographer while the Bridge is out of frame to the right. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Success for the RHA’s campaign depended on, if not a mass, at least a substantial take-up of its call to occupy empty buildings backed by civil disobedience to the courts. Neither happened and the AIA was far too small to carry the campaign on its own and so suspended it.

It is worth noting that though many organisations and individuals had agitated around housing, including the high-media-profile occupation of Apollo House in December 2016, backed by noted individuals,⁶ none had initiated the steps advocated by RHA/ AIA.

*‘Homes Not Hostels’ banner on Tara Street side of occupied Apollo House in December 2016 or January 2017. The building was later demolished and numbers of homeless people continued to rise.*
(Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Amongst a general lack of social condition agitation among the post-GFA⁷ Irish Republican movement, only the socialist-Republican éirigí organisation had militantly taken up the housing struggle while calling for universal social housing — but it had not led a campaign of occupations.

The electoral left and some anarchists had occupied some empty buildings but had either left when threatened by the State or been evicted by security thugs backed up by Gardaí, without a follow-up of further occupations. Nor had they contextualised housing occupations as part of revolution.

So the record of AIA is stand-alone among the Republican and Socialist Left so far and therefore, one might speculate, failed to inspire a mass movement.

I am not ashamed to say that I supported AIA’s campaign although I did not take part myself in any of the occupations. However I did not view it as an immediate cause for revolution, nor do I now. The Irish gombeen⁸ State, I believe, can survive the supply of universal social housing.

The ‘rack-renting’ landlords, both big and small, cannot. But the Gombeen class, closely linked to the landlords and speculators will ditch them if they are confronted – not with the suffering of the masses, about which they care not, nor protests – but with the real alternative of social revolution.

The State has access to the means to fund such a campaign of new housing construction and of renovation/ repurposing of existing empty buildings⁹ by local municipal authorities.

In such a radical change of the Irish neo-colonial capitalist system, people would have more disposable income and purchasing would increase dramatically, stimulating production and expansion of goods and services and raising people’s living standards (and expectations).

Property speculation would be hugely reduced in scope but would continue – in hotels and office blocks, for example and big projects such as transport networks. And possibly in sale of land to State and local authorities for housing projects.

So, essentially a reformist project, not revolutionary at all, right? No, not at all necessarily. Reformist projects fought for with revolutionary intent and energy, teach the masses their potential when they unite in struggle. It also tests their leaders before their eyes, in their experience.

I see universal social housing therefore as a social necessity for the mass of people living on the streets, in hotel-rooms, sofa-surfing, in insecure and inappropriate housing, facing eviction from debt-mortgaged housing (the cost of which has already been paid several times over).

Universal social housing is a social necessity and an urgent one and it is an objective for which all true humanity in Ireland should strive. Revolutionaries should fight for it, pointing towards the evils of the capitalist system and the need for its replacement by a socialist system.

The struggle should be fought relying on the strength and capacity of the working people and will need to embody civil disobedience and sacrifice, while at the same the movement needs to safeguard capacity for other struggles such as against fascism, imperialism and colonialism.

In that context therefore, I think we should unreservedly support the call of the AIA’s statement today and the headline of this article.

End

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

Anti-Imperialist Action statement on Telegram 19/08/2025

Homelessness statistics:https://www.focusireland.ie/press-release/homeless-figures-increase-to-a-record-high-of-15286-as-focus-Ireland-urge-government-to-prioritise-new-social-housing-for-vulnerable-families/

Empty property statistics: https://www.socialjustice.ie/article/vacancy-and-dereliction-ireland

APPENDIX

Text of Anti-Imperialist Action statement 19/08/2025:

Housing is a key part of the Republican struggle for National Liberation and Socialist Revolution in Ireland.

Housing is one of the key pressure points in the class struggle in Ireland today, due to the artificial housing crisis created by those in power, designed at driving up profits for landlords and imperialist housing vultures.

Since the days of Tone, Irish Republicans have recognised that land and housing are completely tied to the fight for freedom, and today it is by showing the Republican struggle will solve the land and housing issue once and for all, to the benefit of the working class, that Republicans can mobilise our class to join the fight.

There should be no doubt about the Republican position on housing. The 1916 Proclamation stated that ‘the ownership of Ireland by the People of Ireland’. The Democratic Programme placed public right above private property and stated, It shall be the first duty of the Government of the Republic to make provision … to secure that no child shall suffer hunger or cold from lack of food, clothing, or shelter’.

Landlords and foreign imperialist housing vultures have no place in the Republican vision of a Free Ireland, where homes would be provided by the Republic to all Citizens.

AIA advocates a system of Universal Social Housing as the Republican Housing System that guarantees all citizens a home, and rents based on ability to pay. This system is the death knell for landlords and vultures and it is why the garrison class resists it.

AIA has played a leading roll in the militant housing direct actions of recent years and will continue to do so.

If you want to fight the landlords and vultures and work to bring about the conditions for a Republican system of Universal Social Housing, then join AIA!

Raise the cry of the working class: Smash Landlords and Vultures – Universal Social Housing Now!

1 https://www.focusireland.ie/press-release/homeless-figures-increase-to-a-record-high-of-15286-as-focus-Ireland-urge-government-to-prioritise-new-social-housing-for-vulnerable-families/

2Taking history tour groups around Dublin I often comment that Dublin has suffered three period of architectural devastation, all in the last century: 1) the British artillery bombardment during the 1916 Rising; 2) the Irish neo-colonial State’s bombardment during its Civil War; 3) the property speculators’ rampage from the 1970s onwards.
Pete St. John, in his song Dublin In the Rare Aul’ Times:

“Fare thee well, sweet Anna Liffey,

I can no longer stay

And watch the new glass cages

Spring up along the quays …”

3In one of which I was wrongfully named myself since no evidence of my presence had been provided by the landlords to the court – merely an article by me describing the occupation of ‘Sean Heuston House’ reproducing some photographs taken inside. See https://rebelbreeze.com/2022/09/22/concert-in-occupied-building-murals-pickets-and-court-cases-the-revolutionary-housing-league-spreads-the-fight/

4 https://www.facebook.com/JamesConnollyHouse/videos/2172514896242639

5I passed by this building recently which, three years later, appeared to be still empty.

6The occupiers eventually agreed to leave under a mixture of threat and promises and the building was demolished.

7The Good Friday Agreements of 1999, the Irish instalment of the imperialist pacification process, following South Africa’s and Palestine’s versions, later to visit Colombia and Turkish Kurdistan.

8From the Irish word gaimbín, first applied to the hustlers opportunistically buying up Irish land in the midst of the disaster of the Great Starvation (1845-1849) but now applied to the Irish comprador or foreign-dependent native capitalist class.

9 https://www.socialjustice.ie/article/vacancy-and-dereliction-ireland

Don’t Change the System – Just the Parties in Government

On June 19, 2025June 20, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Housing Struggle, Human Rights, Ireland, Irish Left, Political Analysis, Socialist Revolution, Trade unionsLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

I was relieved by my attendance at the Raise the Roof housing demonstration in Molesworth Street in Dublin City Centre. That was because I learned from speakers that just by voting in ‘a Left Government’ we could receive the housing we need.

Raise the Roof is a coalition of trade unions with its address at the Labour Party-orientated ICTU and a number of housing NGOs. The coalition also contains political parties: Sinn Féin; Labour Party; People Before Profit/ Solidarity; Social Democrats; Independents4Change.¹

A view of the protest in Molesworth St. Leinster House is in the background across Kildare Street with access prevented by police barriers at the end of Molesworth St with a special gate to allow entry and exit for customers of the hotel on the corner. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Previously I’d thought that either we’d need a revolution or a country-wide campaign of direct action occupying empty properties. This is because the housing crisis is deliberately constructed for the benefit of profits for big landlords, vulture funds and the banks that finance them.

And since they keep making massive profits out of the situation, they won’t want it to change as it would if, for example, were the State to seize empty properties² for conversion to housing along with a massive public housing for rent construction campaign.

And if the profiteers don’t want that, naturally their (sorry, ‘our’) government will make sure not to do anything of the sort.

So it was great to learn that we won’t have to really fight and break the law, going to jail and all that. Phew! Just change the parties in the Government at the next election! Elect a Left Government!

*Visual accidental irony comment in the same street.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

But… lately I have to admit I’ve been having doubts about this solution. First of all, there’s the question of numbers of TDs available to form this aspired-to government. There are overall 174 TDs in Leinster House (the Parliament of the Irish State) and a fragile majority requires 88.

The Sinn Féin party has 39 TDs and People Before Profit/ Rise/ Solidarity five in total, a combination of 44 still needing another 44 to reach the 88 minimum. FG and FF, formerly opposition parties but now in government have 86 votes between them and needed some extras to run the Government.

But I’ve got a much bigger doubt really, and that’s whether SF will stand up to the bankers and property magnates.

SF has for decades being setting out its stall that it is safe pair of hands to run the system, in other words that the profiteers have nothing to worry about. And to tell the truth, I believe them. Though some of their followers think SF is fooling the system, I think it’s the followers being fooled.

*View of the Raise the Roof protest in Molesworth street.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

So … after further consideration, it really does look like a revolution will be required to end the housing crisis — or at least something so near as to make the managers of the system believe that unless they resolve the housing crisis, there will be a revolution. So I’m worried again.

Anyway, it was interesting seeing the amount of Tricolours in what was predominantly a left-wing rally of hundreds (despite a small contingent holding an Aontú banner) and there was some nice music with singers including Lisa O’Neill and Jimi Cullen (with his Homes for All composition).

I still left early, however.

End.

Footnotes

1 https://www.raisetheroof.ie/about-raise-the-roof

2 https://www.socialjustice.ie/article/vacancy-and-dereliction-ireland

“FIX OUR HOMES!” – DUBLIN COUNCIL TENANTS DEMONSTRATE AT CITY HALL

On June 11, 2025June 11, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, City Planning, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Environmental, Housing Struggle, Human Rights, Irish Left, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text:5 mins.)

A large number of tenants organised by the Community Action Tenants’ Union (CATU) from a number of Dublin City Council housing estates gathered outside City Hall on Monday 12^th May evening to lobby the monthly elected Councillor’s meeting.

Those attending for the most part came from public housing blocks and estates from Ballymun to the Liberties and Coolock to Pearse Street. They carried placards and demanded that Dublin City Council negotiate with them.

*A section of the lobby outside City Hall facing Parliament Street (note on top extreme left of photo plaque commemorating two leaders of the Irish Citizen Army shot dead in 1916).* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The recently-appointed Assistant Chief Executive over housing and community came out to receive the Union’s demands and petitions from tenants organising within their complexes and areas and the lobbyists also forced the issues onto the agenda of the council meeting that night.

The protest was organised by the Dublin city CATU branch with wide support from community organisers and was attended by a number of elected councillors from some political parties and independents.

The problems CATU representatives listed verbally and in writing included a general low level of maintenance and upkeep of their estates and blocs, of the actual dwellings, communal areas, playgrounds and rubbish chutes. Rat infestations were a problem in some.

Damp leading to mould, rainwater penetration, inadequate proofing, badly fitting windows and doors were also listed at a number of sites, as were inadequate insulation leading to high heating costs and a need for overhaul of the heating system itself.

Among the slogans chanted was: Dublin City Council – Negotiate!

Included in their demands was that DCC officials recognise the right of their tenants to be represented by CATU as their union, which they stated was not always respected and they sought formal meetings with named officials responsible for the areas in question within one month’s time.

Although apparently currently not members of CATU, the organisation had invited the Pearse House Residents’ Committee to attend and speak at the lobby. Their chairperson Neil Maloney did so, addressing the issue of the long overdue regeneration of their housing bloc.

Maloney described the “blow to the community” when funding for stage two of the regeneration project to eliminate overcrowding was withdrawn, after their hopes had been raised by presentation of a regeneration timescale and a physical design in August of the previous year.

Ironically, the housing crisis was implicated in the Government’s reason for refusing to support the regeneration going ahead, in that the increase in inner space of the dwellings would reduce the number of actual housing units.

The Pearse House chairperson commented that “the current bedsits are illegal” and that their homes currently don’t meet European standards, going on to state “a real need for bigger homes to address overcrowding and family needs.”

“This was always going to be a challenge for this protected structure, but in phases 2 and 3 of the regeneration plan, there would be 2 additional blocks built. The additionality that the Government is seeking would be gained through the social homes gained during the decanting process.”

Pearse House residents attended CATU’s protest “to highlight our anger and what we see as another block on this project,” Maloney said. And note that although DCC has committed to redesigning the project for submission to the Government there is no guarantee this will be successful either.

“Ireland is still in breach of the European Charter for social housing and our human rights. Our community has seen the redevelopment and construction of new buildings, offices etc. and Pearse House is the eyesore in the middle of our community.”

“We were the community before all this redevelopment, and we will be the community when it’s all over,” concluded Maloney, voicing a common complaint along the south Dublin dockside. ¹

*A section of the lobby outside City Hall viewed looking down Dame Street. (Neil Maloney is pictured after his speech).* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Public Housing Background

There was little public housing in Dublin under British rule and the big town houses of the rich had been sold and sub-divided for rent by private landlords (including some who were elected councillors (or aldermen).

The new State built “2,000 local authority homes by 1924, a feat all the more remarkable in the context of a shortage of State funds, and the need to rebuild much of the infrastructure damaged in the War of Independence.”²

But of course it was not keeping up with the existing need or population growth and 40% of the population were forced to emigrate in the first 50 years of the Irish State.³

However 1924 too was the introduction of legislation facilitating state money subsidising the building of private housing.⁴ “In the decade after 1932 some 82,000 homes were built, the vast majority (public and private) with State subsidies.”⁵

Prof. Kenna relates that by 1940, some 41% of the Irish housing stock had been built by local authorities, far higher than that in England and Wales (25%) and also comments on the effect this had on subsidiary employment not only in construction but in sourcing and supply of materials.⁶

Although by 1964, a further 74,000 private and 63,000 local authority homes were built with State support and that between the 1950s and 1960s a million people had left the country, there was still a housing shortage and rents on private properties dug deep into workers’ incomes.⁷

Prof. Kenna comments that little attention was paid to the need for housing estate management, amenities, shops and the social, educational or other needs of the new community established there. That this should coincide with a boom time for property developers should not surprise us.

Government schemes to facilitate the purchase of their local authority accommodation from the 1950s resulted in the disappearance of much public housing stock into the private sector.⁸ Theoretically they would be replaced by new public housing builds but that didn’t happen.

Public land and land held by NAMA⁹ has been increasingly sold or even given away to private developers on promises of provision of a low percentage of public housing and often those individuals or consortiums do not even keep their earlier promises.

The Report of the Commission on the Relief of the Sick and Destitute Poor in 1927, Prof. Kenna reminds us, found 3,257 homeless people including 901 children, while in January 2021 there were 5,987 homeless adults and 2,326 homeless children in Ireland.

The Far-Right has jumped on the opportunity of the current housing crisis to blame it – not upon lack of public housing construction, big landlords, property speculators and vulture funds – but on migrants.

The Left in Ireland has until now in practical terms left this ground for exploitation of racists.

*One of a number of speakers, photographed from across the street as too crowded there.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

GOING FORWARD

CATU seemed pleased with the lobby turnout and announced their intention to organise a housing protest march on Saturday July 5^th. In the meantime they will no doubt be following up on the meetings they requested with area housing managers and agreeing objectives and deadlines.

Hopefully, seeing the initial results in the attention of DCC housing and amenity officials, and reflecting on their numbers when they take joint action, tenants of DCC will take heart and grow in confidence in their ability to ensure provision of decent housing and services for their needs.

Of course, the Far-Right won’t like that as it distracts from their targets – but the extension of this campaign does provide some hope of something like a solution to the current terrible grinding crisis of both housed and homeless.

End.

APPENDIX: I916 Battleground

It might or might not have been mentioned (I couldn’t hear much of the speeches) that City Hall, outside of which CATU were protesting, had been a 1916 resistance centre, occupied by a small force of the Irish Citizen Army, known in some circles as the first workers army in the world.

Unaware of the extremely low British garrison on the Castle that day, the ICA had failed to take the complex and retreated to City Hall and some outposts in Dame Street and Parliament Street where they resisted until overwhelmed by British Army reinforcements.

The symbolism of the Castle, the administrative seat of the British occupation in insurgent hands, resulted in a ferocious assault on the ICA garrison and it fell on the Monday/ Tuesday of that week. One of the statues inside bears what appears to be a bullet hole to this day.

A steel plaque on the right of the outside front of the building lists the names of the ICA garrison of the area, around 50% of which were women. An older cast plaque at the east corner lists the names of two of the five who were killed there, Sean Connolly (OC) and Sean O’Reilly (2i/c).

The 1916 Rising was followed by the election of the First Dáil in 1919 with its Democratic Program affirming that all right to private property must be subordinated to the public right and welfare, and that no child should suffer hunger or cold from lack of food, clothing, or shelter.¹⁰

That was followed by the War of Independence and the Anglo-Irish Agreement; and the new State that came into being had no intention of fulfilling the promise of the Democratic Program but rather a determination to suppress any who tried for that fulfilment.

Footnotes

1For example the construction plans for the Irish Bottle Glass site (sold by Nama to the Ronan consortium) contain no components of public housing and units at expected prices will not be affordable by most local people.

2Prof. Padraic Kenna https://www.jcfj.ie/article/100-years-of-irish-housing/

3Ibid.

4Ibid.

5Ibid.

6Prof. Padraic Kenna https://www.jcfj.ie/article/100-years-of-irish-housing/

7References in Prof. Padraic Kenna https://www.jcfj.ie/article/100-years-of-irish-housing/

8 https://www.dublininquirer.com/a-new-book-weighs-up-the-history-and-impact-of-selling-off-irelands-social-homes-to-tenants/#:~:text=In%20the%201950s%2C%20the%20first,than%20we%20could%20have%20had.%E2%80%9D

9 https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/housing-planning/2025/05/11/no-deal-on-affordable-housing-at-glass-bottle-site/

10 https://www.nootherlaw.com/archive/democratic-programme.html

Useful Links

CATU: https://catuireland.org/

A Hundred Years of Irish Housing by Professor Padraic Kenna: https://www.jcfj.ie/article/100-years-of-irish-housing/

The Democratic Program of the First Dáil: https://www.nootherlaw.com/archive/democratic-programme.html

Housing: https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/housing-planning/2025/05/11/no-deal-on-affordable-housing-at-glass-bottle-site/

Lack of consultation on traffic management?: https://m.independent.ie/regionals/dublin/dublin-news/local-residents-complain-of-absolute-mayhem-following-new-pearse-street-traffic-restrictions/a240993177.html

DUBLIN COURTS INCREASINGLY TRYING POLITICAL CASES

On March 7, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Housing Struggle, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

The CCJ (Criminal Courts of Justice) in Parkgate Street, Dublin, are seeing an increase in political cases in recent weeks with activists in housing and Palestine solidarity as well as Irish Republicans fighting extradition to the British colony.

Eoghan Ó Loingsigh, who made the mistake of asking a Garda for his badge number while they were carrying out an eviction, appeared there in February only to see his case thrown forward to June.

*Picket anti-extradition display by Anti-Imperialism Action outside Heuston Station in February.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

Another housing activist’s charge of attempting to break into an empty property was dismissed. The property in question, empty for a number of years is leased to the Salvation Army and three years ago two RHL¹ activists were evicted from it by 100 Gardaí (some armed) with helicopter support.

Jack Brazil, a Palestine solidarity activist whom the Gardaí are trying, believe it or not, to tie into the racist and criminal riots of November last year, had yet another appearance in court without trial as he’s still trying for CCTV footage from Gardaí to support his alibi for the night.

At least the remaining bail restriction on Brazil was lifted: at the outset he had to sign on at Mountjoy Garda station once every week, observe a curfew of 12am-6am and not to loiter at any point in the Dublin city centre (D1 and D2). His case is now remanded to 26 March.

*Jack Brazil (in the suit) and other Palestine solidarity activists outside the CCJ after Brazil’s most recent appearance there.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

Jim Deneghan had a number of court appearances fighting extradition to the Six Counties on foot of charges alleging an act during the 30 Years War there – fifty years ago. He was unsuccessful and it appears that the only avenue open to him now would be to challenge it in the High Court.

Should they even grant him leave to do that which is not always the case.

*Some of the AIA-organised anti-extradition banner drop on the Fairview pedestrian bridge hold up placards against extradition.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

Another extradition case has been dealt with in the Special Criminal Court, which is located within the same building as the CCJ, distinguished from other courts by the glass-enclosed reception ‘box’ through which one must pass to gain entry, first satisfying ‘security’ provisions.²

Sean Walsh has been fighting extradition to the UK’s Irish colony, the Six Counties on a charge of membership of an armed Republican organisation, which is deemed illegal on both sides of the British Border. He is in custody in Portlaoise awaiting a decision from the ECHR in Brussels.

Independent Dublin Republicans organised solidarity pickets outside the court on the mornings of Denneghan’s appearances, while Anti-Imperialist Action held a picket against extradition outside the nearby Heuston Train Station and a more recent banner drop on the Fairview Pedestrian Bridge.

*Picket organised by Independent Dublin Republicans outside court where extradition of Jim Deneghan (Centre, next to State Harp) was being decided in February.* (Photo sourced: *IDR Facebook page*)

The CCJ courts, in particular those on the ground floor are extremely busy with what seems at times like industrial-scale processing of setting further dates for court appearances, granting or refusing bail, requiring ‘discovery’ and other documentation from the Gardaí and some sentencing.

The human subjects of these proceedings are mostly from what might be termed the under-class of Dublin with some migrants added for good measure. Most face charges of possession of drugs, anti-social behaviour, threatening behaviour, theft and breach of bail conditions.

A huge amount of court, lawyer and Garda time is taken up with processing people accused under these charges. On the other hand the processes also interfere hugely with the normal lives of those charged and in addition, in the case of political activists, disrupt some of their legal activity.

And can cost them loss of pay and even threaten their employment. Which might be deliberate on the part of the system or if not, at least something those who manage it will not regret.

*Banner drop by AIA from Fairview pedestrian footbridge.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

The sheer number of that social group being processed through the courts daily is an indication of something really wrong with Irish society and which worsens even through generations, while the major reaction of the State is to maintain the social conditions and repress its victims.

By and large the middle class only come into contact with that element of society when they are prosecuting or defending them in court, or professionally dealing with them in hospital or social services environments.

It is also where many of those who are trying to change the prevailing social and economic conditions, i.e political activists, will first rub shoulders with that group while next to them on court seating benches. Unless the political repression goes a step further and they meet in jail.

End.

1Revolutionary Housing League which had renamed the building, on Eden Quay, ‘James Connolly House’.

2The non-jury SCC was established under an Amendment to the Offences Against the State Act, pushed through Leinster House by Fianna Fáil amidst collapse of its opposition during a panic caused by (British Intelligence) terrorist bombing of Dublin in 1972 killing two and maiming many. The scene of many unjust decisions, its most famous was the conviction of the innocent ‘Sallins Four’ when the SCC was based at Green Street, appropriately enough the scene of many injustices under the British occupation, including the death sentence on Robert Emmet after his famous speech. The existence of the SCC is opposed by Amnesty International and Irish civil rights organisations and, until a few years ago, by the majority political party in Ireland, Sinn Féin, which no longer opposes it.

HELICOPTER AND MASSIVE GARDAÍ NUMBERS – FOR WHAT?

On July 14, 2023July 17, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Housing Struggle, Human Rights, Ireland, Political Analysis3 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Late Tuesday night and early hours of Wednesday morning an operation with large numbers of Gardaí and their helicopter circling overhead disturbed residents in the north Dublin city centre area of Berkeley Road and surroundings.

It looked like drug bust, hostage rescue situation or siege, but it was none of those things, instead being an eviction of four housing activists.¹

*Supporters of the occupation by the RHL gathered at short notice by Berkeley Road during the Garda operation but were roughly pushed far back by Gardaí from the building under attack* (Photo: *RHL*)

The building had been “acquisitioned” by the Revolutionary Housing League which for a couple of years has been occupying buildings lying empty around Dublin in order to house homeless people and to inspire people to take over empty buildings to end the homeless crisis.

One of those buildings was the red-brick building on Eden Quay and corner of Marlborough Street; it had been operated by the Salvation Army as a night shelter for homeless young people but left empty for years after losing funding.

*Supporters in front of James Connolly House occupation over a year ago.* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

On 1^st May 2022, RHL² activists ‘acquisitioned’ the building, renamed it James Connolly House and repaired a leak in the roof. In the early morning of 9^th June 2022, an estimated 100 Gardaí (some reportedly armed) stormed the building with a Garda helicopter circling overhead.

Two RHL activists performing overnight security on the building were arrested and brought to court, where they declined to be bound over or to give an undertaking that they would not return to the building.

The Salvation Army said that they were renovating the building in order to house Ukrainian refugees. Not only was there no evidence of that in the building when it was occupied but it is empty still, over a year after that eviction³.

Garda evictions have taken place around other acquisitions of empty properties and RHL activists have on each occasion refused to commit to an undertaking not to occupy other properties.

Rather, the RHL has called for empty buildings to be occupied around the country.

The eviction this week

*The massive Garda operation this week, including road-blocks, to evict RHL occupants of the Berkeley Road house*. (Photo: *RHL*)

After the eviction in Berkeley Road, four RHL activists were taken to Court where they followed the previous pattern of refusing to be bound over or to promise not to occupy other buildings. Nevertheless they were released with a threat of jail-time if they re-occupied.

The lessee of the building, advertising as Cabhrú and formerly Catholic Housing Aid Society (Chas), has faced allegations of improper use of that building and another, Fr. Scully House on nearby Gardiner Street, some of which were borne out in an investigation by Charities Regulator.⁴

*Supporters of the RHL occupiers outside the High Court* (Photo: *RHL*)

The housing crisis

The numbers of homeless people in the the Irish state passed 12,000 for the first time in May this year and over 4,000 of those are children,⁵ nor do those figures include people defaulting on their mortgage loans, sleeping on the street or ‘sofa-surfing’ with friends and relations.

According to figures published in April this year, there are over 100,000 empty homes within the Irish state, not counting holiday homes (the Berkeley Road one was empty for three years).

Housing the homeless on the face of it can be accomplished without the revolutionary overthrow of the State and its Gombeen⁶ ruling class. All that is necessary is a public housing program financed by the State, which it could easily accomplish.

However, the stubborn clinging of the Gombeens to keeping a wide high-return market for property speculators, bank funders and big landlords, year after year as the housing crisis worsens, seems to indicate that a revolutionary remedy is necessary.

This week the Taoiseach,⁷ Varadkar, inferred that a contributory cause of the housing crisis was that homeless people had turned down alternative accommodation, a nonsensical claim since one person’s declined accommodation could just be offered to the next.

Addressing him in the Leinster House parliament, Sinn Féin TD⁸ Pearse Doherty⁹ took him to task for inferring that the homeless were to blame for their situation, in response to which Varadkar denied accusing the homeless and ungraciously amended his statement to “some homeless people”.

He went on to say that homelessness has a number of causes but neglected to name the principal one, viz. that the State does not supply funds to municipal authorities to provide public housing, leaving property speculators, banks and big landlords free to exploit the housing ‘scarcity’.

According to media reports, Doherty neglected to take this opportunity to point out the real cause of the problem and the solution, which confirms the doubts of those who say that his party is “Fianna Fáil Mark II”,¹⁰ with no intention to fundamentally alter the economic system in the state.¹¹

*Revolutionary Housing League flag on top of the occupied building during the massive Garda operation* (Photo: *RHL*)

In conclusion

The housing crisis shows no sign of being resolved and the ruling class have ridden high-profile ‘shaming’ token occupations such as that of Apollo House in January 2017 without changing anything. RHL occupations do seem to show a way forward if they are widely emulated.

Heavy Garda operations on the one hand and comparatively light treatment by the courts on the other seems to indicate a determination not to tolerate this kind of direct action on homelessness while at the same time moderated by a fear of creating housing action martyrs.

Meanwhile the numbers of homeless grows by the month without any other credible solution in sight.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1This is the police force that has been described by its chief, Commissioner Drew Harris (formerly Asst. Commissioner of the colonial gendarmerie PSNI and therefore also MI5), as his “gang” but which seems unable to prevent serious assaults in the city centre, even in its main street.

2Originally Revolutionary Housing Union, later became RHL.

3And over 30 months after it first became empty.

4Some of those included a friend of the charity’s Chief Exeutive being accommodated in the building allegedly providing only for the elderly, rooms being let to short-stay students without proper guarantees or rights and one of the houses being used as a business address.

5 https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/politics/homelessness-figures-april-2023-12000-30085446

6From the Irish “gaimbín”, describing opportunist middlemen, now applied to the foreign-dependent native Irish capitalist class.

7Prime Minister of the Irish state.

8Teachta Dála, member of the Irish Parliament, equivalent to “MP”.

9Deputy leader of the party in the Irish parliament. Holly Cairns, leader of the Social Democrats also attacked Varadkar on the statement.

10Fianna Fáil is one of the two main government parties; originally a split from Sinn Féin led by De Valera, it has been in government more than any other party in the Irish state.

11A number of SF party leaders including its current president have publicly stated that big business has nothing to fear from their party.

SOURCES

Charities Regulator report: https://www.charitiesregulator.ie/en/information-for-the-public/our-news/2021/july/charities-regulator-publishes-inspectors-report-into-the-affairs-of-cabhru-housing-association-services

Irish Times articles regarding concerns over the years: https://www.irishtimes.com/tags/cabhru-housing-association/

Video about the RHL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSL453gVHAg

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/politics/homelessness-figures-april-2023-12000-30085446

Taoiseach Varadkar and his controversial remark about the homeless: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/taoiseach-refuses-to-apologise-for-saying-plenty-of-people-on-housing-list-refuse-offers-of-accommodation/a1546284704.html