Thursday marked the three-year anniversary of singer-songwriter Martin Leahy’s weekly housing crisis protest outside Dáil Éireann.
For the last 156 weeks, Mr Leahy has travelled to Dublin from west Cork every Thursday to sing his song Everyone Should Have A Home at the gates of the Dáil.
To mark the anniversary, Mr Leahy was joined by guest speakers including Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin, Rory Hearne of the Social Democrats, People before Profit-Solidarity TD Paul Murphy, Margaret O’Regan of Derelict Ireland, and Jimi Cullen from Access For All.
Mr Leahy wrote the song as a personal response to the housing crisis upon hearing that he was to lose his home as his landlord was selling the property. He then travelled to the Dáil out of a “sense of hopelessness and despair” and staged his one-person protest.
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“It was the first time I had ever done anything like this and it felt empowering and worthwhile,” he said. “I also feel that it’s important to lift the shame that is felt by so many people around this housing crisis.
“People can feel that they have done something wrong in their lives because housing is unaffordable for them but it’s not their fault. It’s a failure on the part of Government. It’s important to me to take a stand as one person and say that we should not accept this crisis as part of life.”
The number of people accessing emergency accommodation reached a record high of 15,418 at the end of the first quarter of the year, official figures show.
The total, counted in the last full week of March, included 10,743 adults as well as 4,675 children in 2,212 families, according to figures published by the Department of Housing.
The total has increased by 3.7 per cent (554 people) since the end of December, by 11.2 per cent (1,552 people) over the last year and by 40 since the end of February.
