Homelessness campaigner, Fr Peter McVerry, will call for an effective public home building programme at the May Day march and rally in Dublin, which begins at the Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square, Dublin 1, tomorrow (Monday, 1st May), at 2.00 p.m. The march will proceed from the Garden of Remembrance along O’Connell Street and Eden Quay to conclude with a rally outside Liberty Hall, Beresford Place. Organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions and the National Homeless and Housing Coalition, the march will include trade union, campaign group and political party contingents. As well as Fr Peter McVerry, speakers at the rally will include community activist, Rita Fagan and the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland Director, Edel McGinley. President of the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, Pat Bolger, said: “The march will highlight the fact that housing is a right not a privilege and that public land should be used to build public housing and not for private profit.” SIPTU Campaigns and Equality Organiser, Karan O' Loughlin, said: “This march will call for a house building plan which will benefit families in need of homes rather than property developers. The proposals outlined last week by the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Simon Coveney, are all about subsidising private landlords and developers. This is wrong and instead we need a large-scale public housing programme, one that will provide enough homes for the tens of thousands in dire need of decent accommodation.”
Fr Peter McVerry to call for public house building programme at May Day rally tomorrow
