Oscar Traynor Road Lands - Leeson Slams Sinn Féin Support For Private Housing On Public Lands
Cathaoirleach Éirígí Brian Leeson has slammed Sinn Féin for its long-standing support for the construction of private housing on public land and called on them to abandon this failed policy. He made the comments after Dublin City Council backed a proposal that will see 20% of the new housing on the publicly-owned Oscar Traynor Road site sold into private hands. Leeson said,
“This week’s vote on the future of the public land off the Oscar Traynor Road in Coolock has once again exposed Sinn Féin’s long-standing support for private housing on public lands.
While Sinn Féin voted against the lands being transferred to Glenveagh they had no problem with selling 20% of that housing into private ownership. And worse still, they have no problem with the taxpayer subsidising these homes to make them cheaper for the lucky few who get to buy them.
The Sinn Féin 2020 general election manifesto went further and threatened to privatise 30% of all new housing on public land, amounting to 30,000 private homes on public land over a five year period.
The single biggest cause of the housing crisis is the chronic shortage of public housing, which only accounts for about 10% of the overall housing stock in the state. In Vienna, which Sinn Féin spokespeople regularly point to as a public housing success, the level of public and other not-for-profit housing sits at more than 60%.
Public housing in Vienna. If Sinn Féín are serious about replicating the success of Vienna they need to drop their support for building new private housing on public lands.
This is the scale of the challenge facing Irish society. The housing crisis can only be ended by increasing both the overall housing stock AND the percentage of publicly-owned housing within the overall housing stock to at least 30%.
If we are to achieve these twin goals then every available piece of suitable public land must be used to build nothing but genuine public housing for years to come - 100% public housing that is held in permanent public ownership and open to people from all income backgrounds that are in need of a home.
Sinn Féin’s policy of solving the housing crisis by building private housing on public land makes about as much sense as trying to fill a sieve with water. It defies all logic and cannot be done.”
Leeson continued by outlining the duties of the state,
“The state has a fundamental duty to provide secure, affordable housing for anyone that is in need. This responsibility can only be met through the creation of a new system of universally accessible public housing.
But let’s be clear about one thing - the state has absolutely no responsibility to provide anyone with a cheap purchase house. Why should taxpayers pay the price of providing cheap purchase housing for the lucky few? Housing that will later be flipped for profit or rented out in the private sector.
If people want to buy a home they can do so in the private housing market without taxpayers support. If they can’t afford to buy a home the state should be offering them high-quality, affordable income-linked public housing with absolute security of tenure, including inter-generational tenancies.
As Minister For Finance, Charlie Haughey gave all tenants the legal right to buy their council homes and in doing so opened the floodgates for the discounted sale of hundreds of thousands of publicly-owned homes.
The notion that the state has some obligation to provide people with cheap purchase homes goes back to 1966 when Charles Haughey opened the floodgates for the sell-off of tens of thousands of publicly-owned homes. Building taxpayer-subsidised private housing on public lands is no different to what Haughey did.
Haughey’s strategy might have won Fianna Fail some votes, but it cost generations of our people access to secure affordable homes. More than 50 years later we are still dealing with the legacy of that disastrous decision by Haughey. Many of the publicly-owned homes that were sold off at a heavy discount since 1966 have ultimately ended up in the private rental sector as people who were once public tenants became private landlords.
Through RAS, HAP and other schemes, the state is now paying massive amounts of money to rent many of these very same homes for people who are in need of ‘social housing’. And it’s also paying huge sums to buy some of these houses at market prices as it scrambles to increase its stock of public housing.
They say that it’s the definition of insanity to keep doing the same thing while expecting different results. Sinn Féin’s policy of building private housing on public lands surely meets that definition.
Brian Leeson outside the Central Mental Hospital - a prime example of a site which should be used for 100% public housing on public land.
Another part of Haughey’s legacy is an imbedded political culture that sees politicians attempting to buy votes by offering voters cheap taxpayer-subsidised purchase housing, even when those same politicians know that such schemes will make things worse in the long run.
Today we are calling on Sinn Féin to do the right thing, to make a break from the rotten political culture of the past and abandon their support for private housing on public land. Now is the time for real vision and real courage. Now is the time for Universal Public Housing.”