Derry housing activist to join fellow campaigners at national rally in Dublin
A Derry tenants’ rights activist has said she will travel to Dublin next month to take part in a Community Action Tenants Union (CATU) protest against the ‘rapidly escalating housing crisis in Ireland’.
Erin Swaby, a member of CATU Derry, said: “I am going to the All Island Housing Demo on behalf of all the many family, friends, carers and other members of our community who are experiencing evictions, extortion or being kept (trapped) in unfit housing.
"I want to be an advocate for our most vulnerable.”
CATU claimed Stormont and the Dáil have ‘demonstrated their inability and lack of commitment to addressing homelessness and housing inequality’.
The Derry branch and other Ulster branches will be travelling to Dublin on July 5 for the national demonstration.
Conal Matthews, PPR Organiser and Human Rights Campaigner, said: “Local issues with housing continue to worsen, with our current housing situation now very similar and, in most cases, worse than in 1969.
"It is clear that housing has become an increasingly lucrative market and that the overwhelming housing need is still in Catholic-majority areas.
"There are over 3000 empty homes in Belfast and over 20,000 empty homes in the north. The government has an obligation to house people, and the land to build, it is a political choice that they do not.”
Kara Macdonald of CATU Belfast said: “March for your children, your neighbours, and your community - join us in demanding safe, secure homes for all.”
The all-island housing demo will take place on Saturday, July 5 at 1pm, meeting at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin.