Cork Sinn Féin housing campaign brought to Mahon

THE numbers on the housing list in Cork City could reach 10,000 by the end of the year – and City Hall will face a series of protests unless the council takes radical action to tackle the housing crisis, Sinn Féin Councillor Chris O’Leary told a well-attended meeting on the issue at Mahon Community Centre on Tuesday night.

The meeting was the second in a series of public meetings organised by Cork Sinn Féin.

Councillor O’Leary said:

The waiting list for housing continues to soar. On current trends, there will be 10,000 families on the list by November.

Radical action is needed to deal with this ongoing crisis. Sinn Féin is calling for some of the 300,000 vacant dwellings across the state to be purchased at cost price and either allocated to social housing tenants or sold off cheaply to home buyers. Many of these dwellings come under NAMA and these should be the first to be made available for social housing.

Last year, the Government paid out €500million in rent supplement to private landlords. If the 100,000 people on the waiting list were housed they would be paying rent to local authorities instead. Our proposals could actually save the Government money.

There are 37 local authority houses vacant in Mahon. In addition, large numbers of private dwellings are vacant in the Mahon area at locations like Eden and Jacobs Island. Meanwhile, people are waiting up to seven years or more to be housed. We want all these dwellings to be made available immediately to those who need housing.

This is the second public meeting on housing I have spoken at within the past two weeks. The frustration of those spending years on the housing list and facing bureaucratic stonewalling and delay from council officials is the same all over the city.

Unless radical action is forthcoming from the council, within a fortnight we will be looking for your support to take this campaign directly to the Housing Office in City Hall with the first of a series of protests.

The next meeting will take place in the Glen Resource Centre on Wednesday 20th October.

For further information contact Cllr Chris O’Leary @ 087/2794307

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