Local election candidate calls for social housing programme to create jobs

dublin | politics / elections | press release Thursday May 07, 2009 13:39 by Irish Socialist Network

Finglas / Ballymun socialist candidate John O'Neill calls for a major programme of social housing to create employment.

Finglas / Ballymun election candidate John O’Neill called for a major programme of house construction to create employment and provide social housing for working-class people.

“Thousands of jobs are being lost in construction every month,” said O’Neill. “There are countless workers in Dublin and other parts of the country with the skills to build high-quality houses and apartments for local authority housing schemes. Instead of letting those valuable skills go to waste, we should be employing the workers laid off by the building industry on a public housing programme.”

O’Neill pointed out that the property bust which has knocked a hole in the Irish economy was ultimately caused by the decline of social housing construction.

“The run-down of public housing is one of the main causes of our current economic mess,” said O’Neill. “With local authorities failing to build new homes, the field was left clear to private developers, who controlled 94% of the market by 2000. They took advantage of their monopoly position to drive up the price of houses to crazy levels. Now that the bubble has burst, they’ve dragged down the banking system and the rest of the economy with them.”

The crisis of the banks has provided an opportunity for the revival of social housing, pointed out O’Neill.

“Huge land banks will come into public ownership over the next few months,” said the Socialist candidate. “These should be given to local authorities, along with the resources needed to employ construction workers on a major house-building programme. That money would be better spent giving work to people on the dole than bailing out the banks once again.”

The revival of social housing must go hand-in-hand with the creation of real local democracy, O’Neill argued.

“The builders could never have cornered the market they way they did without the help of corrupt local politicians,” said O’Neill. “We all know that the planning system was based on sleazy back-handers and envelopes stuffed with banknotes. Decisions about planning must be opened up to democratic control by local communities - you might be able to bribe a councillor, but you can’t corrupt a whole community. If elected to Dublin City Council, I will fight against the undemocratic system of local government in Ireland.”

John O’Neill is running in the local elections as the candidate of the Irish Socialist Network

You can contact John at 087 6367175 or votejohnoneill@yahoo.ie