We live in different parts of Ireland, in communities both urban and rural, that experience the housing crisis in lots of different ways. By organising together in our own local communities we can help grow the swell of public support to homelessness once and for all. Our politicians all have to take responsibility for the housing crisis. We can pressure them to make this their top priority for 2017. They would like to Apollo House as a one off action and to wash their hands of any responsibility that led to the occupation. Together we can show them that Apollo house is a beacon for change and this struggle is from the bottom up.

We live in different parts of Ireland, in communities both urban and rural, that experience the housing crisis in lots of different ways. By organising together in our own local communities we can help grow the swell of public support to homelessness once and for all. Our politicians all have to take responsibility for the housing crisis. We can pressure them to make this their top priority for 2017. They would like to Apollo House as a one off action and to wash their hands of any responsibility that led to the occupation. Together we can show them that Apollo house is a beacon for change and this struggle is from the bottom up.

This bill will facilitate evictions, increase the power of landlords to evict tenants, & allow developers to build without any real regulation or consultation. What the Bill will do: - Give landlords the right to evict tenants if they feel they could charge more to new tenants. - Allow landlords to evict households who have been in their home and community for over 4 years with no extended notice. - Increase homelessness and put almost 25% of the population under constant threat of eviction. - Allow An Bord Pleanála to privately develop plans with private developers without public consultation. This will lead to unsuitable, untenable and unfinished housing developments nationwide. - Allow for developers to be compensated by up to €10,000 if their planning applications are delayed - an obscene waste of public money. We are in the grips of the worst housing crisis Ireland has seen in a century. However, there are 5,000 empty homes across South Dublin alone. This bill does nothing to tackle the problem of vacant properties, which affects every part of the country. This Bill directly steals from the pockets of a public struggling to keep their homes, to give to private developers and landlords. . This Bill is an obscene affront to the most basic right to a home, and is an insult to the thousands of families and individuals homeless and living on the streets and in cramped hotel rooms nationwide.

I care about it as they dont have a life. They are cramped up in hotel rooms and being ripped off and not given a chance to life like a human. Give back to society to work and make a better life for themselves. Please dont turn a blind eye. Employ more people in this area to process applications quickly. You are destroying people's choices.

We all have a right to adequate access to drinking water. The UN has told the Irish state that according to international human rights law, all levels of government are under an obligation to provide urgent measures, including financial assistance, to ensure access to affordable housing, and essential levels of drinking water and sanitation services.

As Welfare Officer in DCUSU, I have received endless complaints of Academy Walk Management and Lettings Ltd keeping €500 deposits if a student backs out, despite having a waiting list, and providing extortionate fines for ludicrous instances. These include taking a resident's bike claiming that he parked it on private property, charging €100 fine for having a can of Coke and a packet of cigarettes on the ground for a 'fire hazard' and charging up to €500 for having friends over at a variety of times. All provided by students in emails and reviews on Google. It started with keeping the deposits ''because they can''. It escalated with the unnecessary and extortionate fines. We the students are not here to fuel the pockets of the rich and demand better. We demand that Academy Walk Management and Lettings Ltd end operations in Hazelwood and that the landlords operating under their services go to a more student friendly service such as Mike Harrington Property Management immediately.

The people of this community have the lowest density of green space in the state. The council refuse to discuss their plans for the site and intend to sell the land to developers. They are threatening to close a Community Garden which is thriving by delaying the allocation of allotments to residents of the Community that have applied. The area is socially deprived and has .7 % of green space per resident when the World Health Organisation recommends 9% per resident pet community.

For many years now property prices in our local area have escalated beyond belief. For many years there has been no provision of social or affordable housing in our area and regular local people with regular jobs are unable to buy houses in our community. New local developments such as Bolands Mill offer no affordable or social housing as the government allowed the developers to buy back the 10% social housing they should have provided! We as a community need to address this local housing crisis and fight for people of all ages in our community so that we are able to remain living close to our networks of support.

NAMA owns Lynams hotel in the middle of O'Connell St. This 47 bed hotel currently hosts many homeless families as 'Emergency Accommodation' -- a last resort for families hit by economic evictions with nowhere else to go. It could host many more -- every single day families are refused and sent to 'self accommodate' which means they have to source their own hotel by phoning every hotel in the city. Lynams hotel can hold more than 40 families and ensure none of these children are left on the streets. NAMA want to privatise this hotel, selling it back to speculators and developers at a huge discount so they can make huge profits from us again. We wont let this happen! Join our fight for a better city, against homelessness, against privatisation, against rent increases and against elite corruption.

Its important because it will encourage dumping. The bin system is fine. Taxes are being put on ordinary people who are already doing their best to help with the rubbish by putting them into bins already as well as recycling their products. Its not right to impose such charges. We are being forced to pay a polluters charge how dare they. Its the shops have to reduce this packaging on products sold in their shops as we are paying for it now.

Johns Lane West and Brú Aimsir hostels give shelter to almost 150 people who are former rough sleepers in Dublin. They are both set to close in the coming weeks. This will result in the loss of 150 beds for those sleeping rough. Focus Ireland and Peter McVerry Trust who currently run the hostels have not revealed how they plan to accommodate these people who will be forced back onto the streets with the closure of these hostels. The residents have been told they must ring the freephone in Parkgate St to find alternative accommodation. With an already critical shortage of beds, this will only put added strain on a flawed system which puts people in direct competition with each other, having to spend all day trying to get through to the freephone phoneline, often to simply be told there are no beds available. The Irish Housing Network demands: Dublin City Council, Peter McVerry Trust and Focus Ireland put a transparent plan in place with the residents of the hostels in providing suitable accommodation for those affected by the hostels’ closure. Long term social housing stock is immediately turned over for homeless people and families through the building of housing and opening and refurbishment of empty homes. Tenant’s rights for those in emergency accommodation so they cannot be evicted without notice and are protected under tenancy legislation. Rights for Travellers and Roma people in the ability to practice their culture and have well maintained and provisioned sites available throughout the country, including the restoration of traditional roadside stopping places.

Ireland is facing an unprecedented housing crisis - one that has been driven and worsened by private developers who work for profit, not the public good. Now, yet again, our council is seeking to fix the housing crisis by giving handouts to developers. Under the current Dublin City Council Housing Land Initiative, public land in three sites across Dublin will be turned over, free of charge, to private property developers. The proposal depends on high-interest finance. Banks, not the public, will benefit from this model that is based, at best, in a naive faith in the efficiency of privatization or, at worst, in cronyism. Cross-subsidized housing is a sustainable alternative where local government develops housing directly. Rent is based on ability-to-pay, and tenants benefit from rents that are below market rate, and enjoy security of tenure should their fortunes change. Similar schemes already operate successfully in Vienna and Singapore. Please sign our petition to call on Dublin City Council to support this sustainable model for public housing, not the giveaway of public land.