Monivea Road ‘Ban’ Will Do Nothing To Tackle The Vulture Takeover Of Galway Housing
The fact that An Bord Pleanála has directed that some homes in a new Monivea Road development be reserved for owner-occupiers will do nothing to stop the vulture takeover of Galway housing. So says local Éirígí Galway representative, Ian Ó Dálaigh. Speaking from Galway, he said,
“The recent direction by An Bord Pleanála in relation to a 102 home development off the Monivea Road generated media headlines about a ‘cuckoo fund ban’, which is exactly what the government intended when they made some minor changes to the planning laws earlier this year. In reality this ban will do nothing to tackle the vulture takeover of housing in Galway.
The government want to give the impression that they have taken decisive action to stop the vulture takeover of Irish housing, when in fact they are continuing to roll out the red carpet for the vultures.
In this particular development more than half the homes- 55 apartments - can still be bought up by a vulture landlord. And the same goes for any new apartments that are built in Galway or anywhere else.
For example at the Crown Square development in Mervue and the Augustine Hill development in the city centre, An Bord Pleanála have granted planning permission for more than 600 Build-To- Rent apartments.
Apartments account for the vast majority of the housing that the vulture landlords have acquired across the state over the last ten years. And this will continue to the case into the future. That is exactly why the government refused to include apartments in the recent legislation that was allegedly designed to stop the vulture takeover.
Add to that the fact the Ireland’s largest domestic vulture landlord – Galway’s own Comer Brothers – already own 1% of all the housing stock in Galway, and it is clear that vulture takeover of Irish housing is happening on our doorsteps.
Éirígí is calling for an outright ban on the corporate ownership of housing. And we’re calling for housing that is currently owned by the vulture landlords to be taken into public ownership as part of the process of creating a new system of Universal Public Housing.
UP Housing would provide long-term security of tenure, and would be genuinely affordable as it would be linked to household income. And because it would be open to people from all income backgrounds, it would create stable, inter-generational, mixed-income communities.
UP Housing is the only way to permanently end the housing crisis, and radically transform Irish society for the better in the process. Such a system can only come into being through a movement led by ordinary people taking a stand against the property vultures who profit off their misery. So I’m asking people Galway who are affected by the housing crisis to step up and join the fight for the housing justice!”.