"Fine Gael's 'party of home ownership' spin line deeply offensive to homeless people" - Peadar Tóibín
The Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín TD has branded as "deeply offensive" a Fine Gael narrative which suggests that they are the party of 'home ownership'.
Speaking today, Deputy Tóibín said: "Freedom of Information requests from Aontú have revealed that more than 400 homeless people died in Dublin in the past five years. The ages at death are deeply concerning. Of the twenty people who died while homeless in Dublin in the first six months of this year, one of them was under the age of 17, four of them were aged between twenty and 29 years, and a further ten were aged between 30 and 49 years. Its chilling that over two thirds of these deaths were of people younger than me. In Ireland right now we have 60,000 people on the housing waiting list, and nearly a half a million adults living with their parents. 14,429 people are homeless in Ireland including 4,401 children. In the past year these figures have risen by 12%".
Deputy Tóibín continued: "Continued mismanagement of housing by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil has resulted in this humanitarian emergency. The two parties appear to be utterly incompetent in adapting even simple solutions around the fringes of this crisis which would alleviate pressure. There are 4,000 vacant council houses in State ownership currently. The government seem very reluctant to tackle Air BnB which has been left largely unregulated to the point that tourists from America are in houses in Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Cork while Irish students are stuck in hostels".
"The planning process remains pain-stakingly slow and the reams of red tape being thrown across the face of young couples seeking to build - even those seeking to build in rural areas on their own family land. Meanwhile nearly 50,000 Irish homes are owned by vulture funds. The ten biggest landlords in Ireland now own a combined total of 17,000 homes. This government seems keen to protect landlords - and I'm not talking about small landlords, but ones which own thousands of homes. The government have been hostile to Aontú's legislation seeking to repeal the competitive tax advantages shown to REITS. It is ludicrous for me that a party in the government presiding over these statistics and watching on as plane full of youth leave Dublin airport everyday, are attempting to claim they are a party of 'home ownership'. The are the party of REITS and Vulture Funds, they are the party of emigration, of homelessness and empty houses. The irony would be funny, if it were not within the context of such hardship around the country. Fine Gael's spin line narrative is deeply offensive to the friends of the 400 people who have died of homelessness in Dublin in the past five years", concluded Tóibín.
ENDS
