Keegan sorry for ‘sarcastic’ comments to students’ union
Dublin City Council boss apologises for housing jibe while protesters gather and call for his resignation
‘Unhelpful and wrong’ ‘I spend half my time on the bus’
DUBLIN City Council chief Owen Keegan apologised yesterday to the University College Dublin students’ union over his ‘sarcastic’ comments about housing.
But his words fell on deaf ears as more than 100 students protested outside the city council’s offices yesterday demanding his resignation.
His apology comes just two days after a letter he wrote to the union provoked outrage.
The row stemmed from a dispute over opposition to a 571-bedroom PBSA [purpose built student accommodation] being granted temporary permission for use as a short-term tourist letting.
Mr Keegan wrote: ‘If you genuinely believe that excess profits are being made in the PBSA [purpose built student accommodation] market I am surprised the students’ union has not entered the market itself and provided lower cost student accommodation for its members.’
He also wrote that it was ‘not the city council’s fault that you appear to have been unaware of how the planning system works’.
Now, in a letter to councillors, Mr Keegan said he accepted there was ‘an element of sarcasm’ in his original remarks to the union and that these were ‘inappropriate’.
However, he refused to resign from his position following his latest controversy, saying: ‘If elected members consider that my resignation is warranted, then it is their prerogative to initiate the procedure set out in local government legislation.’
He added: ‘On a positive note, this episode has highlighted the ongoing crisis in student accommodation in Dublin, which needs to be addressed.’
However, UCD students’ union president Ruairi Power said yesterday that he has no confidence in Mr Keegan’s position and that his apology letter was not sent to the students’ union.
Mr Keegan’s comments sparked fury among politicians and on social media.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar told Newstalk yesterday that he thought Mr Keegan’s original letter was ‘insulting’ and he assumed it was from a satirical news website. Mr Varadkar said: ‘When I saw that letter, I thought it was a Waterford Whispers [joke]. I didn’t really think he actually wrote that letter and signed it.’
On Monday, Taoiseach Michéal Martin said that Mr Keegan should withdraw his comments, saying that they were ‘unhelpful and wrong’. Green Party leader Eamon Ryan and housing minister Darragh O’Brien also said Mr Keegan should withdraw his remarks.
More than 100 students protested outside the council’s offices yesterday chanted slogans such as ‘Keegan Keegan Keegan, out out out’ and ‘the council are an awful shower, this is called people power’.
Opposition politicians including Social Democrats’ Cian O’Callaghan, Sinn Féin’s Rose Conway-Walsh, and People Before Profit’s Richard Boyd-Barrett spoke to the crowd.
Students at the protest expressed their anger at the ongoing housing crisis in the capital.
Liam de Buitléar, a second-year computer science student at UCD is paying €640 a month to live in digs from Monday to Friday.
He commutes home to Laois every weekend to work in a phone repair shop.
Mr de Buitléar said Mr Keegan’s attitude towards students was ‘abysmal’.
‘He clearly doesn’t have the right mindset to lead Dublin and to put the right policies in place to make sure everybody’s included.’
He said: ‘We don’t want much –we just want a place to stay every night, eat some food, and have a bit of a social time with our friends.
‘[For] a lot of the students I know, it’s not enticing to stay in Ireland when in your entire student life, you didn’t feel welcome at all within your college.
‘I don’t think I’m going to stay in Ireland after I leave college.’
Martha Reidy, a fourth-year law student at UCD, is living temporarily in a small room in her friend’s house after being unable to find accommodation over the summer.
However, Ms Reidy’s room contains the only shower in the house. She said: ‘I have a curtain as a door/wall sort of thing. Anytime anyone is coming in to shower, it wakes me up so this morning I was woken up at half 6 and I didn’t go to bed until half 12 so it’s really not ideal at all.’
Zoe Fitzsimmons, a 19-year-old languages student from Wicklow, commutes up to three hours each day to and from UCD.
She says she struggles to complete her assignments because of the commute.
‘I spend half my time on the flipping bus going in and out of college every day,’ she said.
‘There’s not enough hours in the day if I’m not using the commute time. And if you’re not using it to get some college work done, you’re not going to get your assignments in on time.’
Ms Fitzsimmons says she also wants to emigrate due to the high costs of living in the capital.
She said: ‘The majority of us are just going to leave.
‘It’s literally just sticking out college in Dublin for the next three years, and then we’re emigrating and we’re out of here.’