The Communist Party of Ireland were glad to take part in a public meeting on Wednesday 13th of activists, residents and supporters protesting against the giveaway of public lands at O’Devaney Gardens.
The Irish state, since its inception, has always been hostile towards the public provision of land. However, in the last number of decades they have moved from being hostile to docile.
Removing themselves from the field of play altogether, successive right wing governments have replaced housing provision with a housing ‘market’ and left housing to a grubby Gombeen landlord class.
Government housing policies have created a ‘landlord state’ (there are over 170,000 landlords in the 26 counties). Legislation has allowed for the regular increase of rent and the hoarding of large swathes of land across the country.
I’m doing so, they have laid the ground for American & Canadian vulture funds to enter the fray and run riot. The results of which residents around O’Devaney are confronting at the moment, and of which residents around Oscar Traynor road will face soon.
The solution is a programme of universal public housing, with the full involvement of communities, that will serve to democratise housing and remedy the ills that decades of the current system have fomented. It would bring about reduced rents for all, reduce property prices, and force corporate investors out of our communities.
