This Vulture Landlord Owns 1% Of All Homes In Galway City - Éirígí Is Calling Them Out
There are just under 30,000 homes in Galway City and the suburbs that surround it. Incredibly, a single vulture landlord owns at least 300 of these homes - the equivalent of one in every one hundred homes in the largest city in Connacht.
These homes include Kingston Hall (35 homes), Bun na Leaca (14 homes), Moneenageisha Court (25 homes), Silver Seas (16 homes), Howley Square (26 homes), Altan Apartments (120 homes), Aras Bun Caise (24 homes), Abhainn na mBradán (4 homes), Dalton House (8 homes), Mulhalls (4 homes) and Cuirt na hAbhain (42 homes).
The same vulture landlord also owns about 1,600 more homes in Dublin, Cork, Meath, Kerry, Sligo and other counties - making it one of the largest private landlords in Ireland.
But unlike IRES REIT, Kennedy Wilson, DWS, Urbeo and other vultures, this landlord didn’t come from the US, Britain, Germany or Canada. This vulture landlord is controlled by two of ‘our own’.
This vulture landlord is The Comer Group, a multinational property empire founded by Galway brother’s Luke and Brian Comer. When their Irish properties are added to their property assets in Britain, Germany and elsewhere, the brothers are estimated to be worth at least €3,000,000,000.
Much of this wealth has, of course, been generated from the rents that hard-pressed Irish workers pay to the Comers Brothers each month.
Comer Brothers are worth a ‘conservative’ three billion euro according to the Irish Independent ‘Rich List’ of February 2020.
On Monday (May 31st) Éirígí Gaillimh organised a ‘Vulture Landlords Out’ protest at the top of St Patrick’s Avenue on Eyre Square. The location was chosen because the Comer Brothers own several derelict homes on the avenue - homes which have been allowed to lie empty for years during the worst housing crisis in the history of the state.
The Comer Brothers intend to eventually develop St Patrick’s Avenue and the surrounding area into a new commercial, retail and residential ‘quarter’. Until then, their ‘property assets’ - otherwise known as homes - will lie in disrepair in the heart of Galway City.
Monday’s protest, which drew widespread support from passing motorists and pedestrians, succeeded in drawing public attention to not only the scandal of derelict homes but also to the scale of the Comer Group as a vulture landlord.
Éirígí has been to the fore of highlighting and challenging the vulture takeover of Irish housing for the last five years. Unlike other political parties we don’t see any role in Irish housing for vulture landlords - be they German, British, American or Irish.
We want to see an outright ban on all corporate ownership of Irish housing and we want to see the homes that are currently owned by the vulture landlords brought into public ownership as part of a new system of Universal Public Housing.
If you want to join us in fighting for housing justice, for this generation and future generations, please get in touch today.
Vulture Landlords - Out! Out! Out! Éirígí protest, Galway City, May 31st, 2021