
They evicted us — now we can evict them!
7 March 2024
James O’Toole has been fighting eviction from Tathony House, an apartment block in Dublin, for 72 weeks. He argues that the local elections are the perfect opportunity to evict the councillors belonging to the landlord parties.
The government lifted the eviction ban knowing full well it would lead to a massive increase in homelessness - twice as many people are entering emergency accommodation than are exiting. The government proposed the tenants in situ scheme, where the landlord sells to the local authority, and HAP as solutions.
The problem is that out of 15,000 eviction notices only 1,000 landlords have sold to councils and there are no HAP properties available.
The government plays a sly game where they pretend they’re concerned about the housing crisis but then take measures that increase rental yield for landlords and vultures. Over 40 years they’ve stopped building social housing to decrease supply and up demand.
They lowered the threshold for social housing to turn estates into ghettos and demonise public housing and then when the Celtic Tiger housing bubble burst they bailed out the bankers and developers who’d caused the mess in the first place.
But we get to take our revenge on them in the June local elections. We get to sack the councillors of the landlord parties. Many working class people don’t bother voting in local elections because it never makes a substantial difference to our lives.
But although there’s some truth in that we should use elections to weaken the landlord establishment. This needs to be accompanied by a renewed street movement on housing with a national protest before the Summer.
My wife, Madeleine Johansson, is also facing eviction from Tathony House and is standing for election in the locals. Give your vote to working class tenants and socialist fighters who’re on the front line of the housing crisis.
The establishment parties evicted us, now we need to evict them!