‘We should be building all the public homes that we can and not selling public lands’: CATU Ireland protests at City Hall 

Community Action Tenants Union (CATU) Inchicore Kilmainham have been protesting at City Hall against the Dublin City Council’s plan to allow a private landlord to develop 91 units at St Michael’s Estate. 

“We’re here today to protest the selloff of a plot of land that was publicly owned in St Michael’s Estate. It was previously 100% public housing and now the council are talking about selling 91 homes off to private landlords,” said Rosi Leonard, committee member of CATU Inchicore Kilmainham, during the protest in early October. 

The DCC’s plan seemed to take the district by surprise. 

“It was a real shock to the system when we heard that the homes are going to be for corporate profit instead of being public. It’s really frightening because it means that there will be less secure homes in our community and more corporate landlords making rakes of money and charging huge rents in the area,” said Leonard. 

“The Department of Housing have said that they have to sell it in order to finance houses but we think that’s nonsense. It’s the middle of the worst housing crisis in 60, 70 years. We should be building all the public homes that we can and not selling public lands,” added Leonard.  

CATU Inchicore Kilmainham are also taking other measures to try to change the mind of the DCC. 

“I think we have already seen signs that the council is changing their mind and so as well as protesting, we also door-knock regularly and we have started a local petition.  

“We’ve been working with local community groups, so we’re trying to build a mass of people in the area who are willing to fight this and to persuade their counselors not to vote for the land selloffs,” added Leonard.