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 12th 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.
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the “blow to the community” when funding for stage two of the regeneration project to eliminate overcrowding was withdrawn, after their hopes had been raised by presentation of a regeneration timescale and a physical design in August of the previous year.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
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.
GOING FORWARD
CATU seemed pleased with the lobby turnout and announced their intention to organise a housing protest march on Saturday July 5th. 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/
8https://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
9https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/housing-planning/2025/05/11/no-deal-on-affordable-housing-at-glass-bottle-site/
10https://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
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
rebelbreeze 