Rally in Mayo to highlight worsening housing crisis
The Mayo Homeless and Housing Coalition of trade unions, left political groups, charities and other organisations are staging a socially distanced protest rally in Castlebar on Saturday to demand serious action by the government to deal with the worsening housing crisis.
The Homes4All Rally takes place at 1 p.m. on Market Square in the town.
The organisers are calling for a radical break from the disastrous housing policies of the establishment parties.
They are demanding:
*A Ban on Vulture and Cuckoo funds from the housing sector as has been done in New Zealand.
*Real rent controls to make rent genuinely affordable and strong tenant rights for renters.
*Taxes on vacant property and land being hoarded by property speculators.
*Mass compulsory purchase of suitable vacant dwellings.
*Close all the tax loopholes and make the speculators pay tax on their super-profits.
*Stop the sell-off of public land.
A major programme of directly built public and genuinely affordable homes on public land.
That “affordable” houses and apartments are available for those on modest and average incomes.
A spokesperson for the coalition stated: “We will only achieve this through a movement of people power.
"We are determined to build such a movement to make affordable secure housing a basic human right and we want the people of Mayo to come out on Saturday to support these demands."