Housing protesters defy court

HOUSING protesters occupying a derelict house defied a High Court order to leave yesterday as a minister rejected allegations the Government is out of touch on the housing crisis.

An injunction ordering the protesters to leave the four-storey Georgian property in Dublin city centre – which they have been occupying for almost two weeks – came into effect yesterday at 1.30pm.

A rally to defend the occupation at No.34 North Frederick Street was attended by more than 50 people yesterday afternoon.

Inside the building, activists wore face masks depicting Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy.

A protest banner reading ‘10,000 welcomes from 10,000 homeless’ referred to the number of homeless people recorded in July being just shy of 10,000. Organisers say they want ‘to continue to highlight the causes of this crisis, one of which is land hoarding and speculation by private owners’.

However, Simon Harris yesterday denied allegations that the Government is out of touch with those affected by the housing crisis.

The Health Minister said: ‘It’s not true, we need to be judged on actions we are taking. Minister Murphy is working extraordinarily hard to roll out a major programme of social housing building.

‘It’s interesting that it has been somewhat airbrushed that one of the deepest scars from the recession is the housing crisis.’

He said previous governments ran the economy ‘on the back of property revenue’. ‘We had a situation where we had an oversupply of houses, ghost estates and bad planning, and then a complete drought when it came to housing production.

‘We need to get back into a real substantial programme of building social housing. I know people right across the country, and family members who grew up in their council home, had an opportunity to buy their house and embed themselves in their community. That’s what we need to get back to.

‘In recent years because of lack of supply, we’ve seen the private rental market sector being used, and it’s appropriate that it’s used in the short term, but we need a major programme of house building.

‘Local authorities have been set very ambitious targets for building social housing and we need them to come on stream as quick as possible.’