"Columb Barracks Site Must Be Used For 100% Universal Public Housing" - Mickey Moran
Mickey Moran has called for the site of the former Columb Barracks in Mullingar to be exclusively used for Universal Public Housing. As with other Land Development Agency (LDA) sites, Columb Barracks is currently earmarked for a mixture of ‘social housing’ and ‘affordable’ private housing. Speaking from Athlone, the Éirígí General Secretary said,
"The LDA has the stated task of making ‘more effective use of state lands, providing a stable, sustainable supply of land for housing’. Their plan to use Columb Barracks for a mixture of ‘social housing’ and ‘affordable’ private housing will certainly not make the most effective use of this valuable piece of publicly-owned land.
The Columb Barracks site in Mullingar
Income-segregated ‘social housing’ is part of a wider failed housing model that the political establishment has used for decades to boost the wealth of the housing-profiteers and to reinforce damaging class divisions.
The ‘affordable housing’ that the LDA is proposing for the Columb Barracks site will see this public land squandered to provide discounted private housing to the lucky few who manage to buy them.
Using public land for private housing, as part of an ‘affordable’ scheme or any other scheme, will only deepen the housing crisis, because the main cause of that crisis is the chronic lack of public housing.
In the Twenty-Six Counties, public housing only accounts for around 10% of the total housing stock. This is clearly far too low to meet the current needs of the one million people who are being are denied access to secure, affordable housing.
Éirígí activists at the Columb Barracks site
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%.
The percentage of publicly-owned housing will never increase if public lands are used for private housing as the LDA and the government are proposing. All public land throughout the country should be used for 100% Universal Public Housing that is open to everyone who is need of housing, regardless of their income, occupation or other circumstances.
Building 100% Universal Public Housing on all public land is necessary to correct the massive imbalance that decades of profit-driven government housing policies created.
At a local level we need to ensure that the Columb Barracks land is used for 100% public housing – housing that will remain in permanent public ownership to provide affordable, secure homes to this and future generations of local people. I’m encouraging the people of Mullingar and the surrounding areas to support this call and to join the fight for housing justice.”