Use Corrib Great Southern Site For UP Housing Student Accommodation!
Éirígí For a New Republic is calling on Galway City Council to issue a compulsory purchase order on the site of the old Corrib Great Southern Hotel and use it to build publicly-owned student housing. The site is owned by the Comer Group - Ireland's largest domestic vulture landlord. Speaking from Galway, Éirígí's local representative Ian Ó Dálaigh said,
"The student housing crisis in Galway has gotten so bad that there are now over 5,000 students on waiting lists for accommodation. Many students have had to defer their courses, or even drop out of college entirely because they cannot secure accommodation in the city.
The Galway student housing crisis has further brought into focus the socially and economically destructive nature of a profit-driven housing system. In Galway, perhaps the most obvious symbol of this system is the site of the old Corrib Great Southern Hotel.
This site is owned by Ireland's largest domestic vulture landlord - the Comer Group - who bought it in 2013 for a cut-price of €3.5m. At the height of the Celtic Tiger, developer Gerry Barrett paid €30m for the then operating hotel and surrounding site.
In the eight years that the Comers have owned the hotel is has become an increasingly dilapidated eyesore and a hotspot for anti-social behaviour, including several fires within the building. Yet the Comers are happy to leave it idle as they play the property speculation game.
Galway City Council signed off on demolition orders for the hotel in November 2020, with work commencing a couple of weeks ago. Local establishment politicians are celebrating this, but the reality is that demolition means nothing if the site continues to lie idle. It must be put to productive use immediately.
Given the location of the site, which is directly beside the Galway Mayo Institution of Technology campus, it would be ideal for student accommodation.
Éirígí is called for Galway City Council to issue a compulsory purchase order and use the site to build publicly-owned student accommodation as part of a wider system of Universal Public Housing.
We need to stop viewing housing as a commodity and start to treat it as the essential public service that it is. We in Éirígí believe the state should provide affordable secure housing for all sections of society under including single people, families, students, pensioners and those with additional needs - all under the umbrella of UP Housing.
We can look to Europe for positive examples of what housing justice looks like. Vienna has operated a highly successful public housing system for decades, while just this week in Berlin, a majority of people voted for a proposal that would see up to 240,000 privately-owned rental properties brought into public ownership.
Students, workers, and everyone else that's negatively affected by the profit-driven crisis must unite to build a movement that can deliver this kind of housing justice here in Ireland".
If you’re ready to join the fight for housing justice and a New Republic, join Éirígí today.
Did you find this article interesting? Below are the links to a few other recent housing-themed articles:
'Irish Housing Market Getting More Like A Pyramid Scheme With Every Passing Day" - Brian Leeson
Ó Dálaigh Slams An Bord Pleanála For Green-Lighting 345 Vulture Homes In Galway
'Housing For All' Will Not Solve The Housing Crisis And Will Actually Make Things Worse. Here's Wh