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."