Ireland after NAMA

Back in March, Taoiseach Enda Kenny made the claim that “If you had 30,000 three- bedroom detached houses in Dublin you’d sell them all in a week. That’s the pent-up demand that’s there”. This has been part of a discourse that seeks to once again talk up the property market; to encourage the construction and sale of houses as a means to both stimulate the economy and to provide housing through the mechanisms of the private market.
The casual slippage back into the development logic of the Celtic Tiger era seeks to ignore both the remaining material evidence of the property crash – in the form of the persistent problems of mortgage arrears, negative equity, and unfinished developments – and the burgeoning housing crisis in the Dublin region.
In short, this strategy seeks to resurrect the property market to the detriment of addressing the housing crisis.
To tackle these issues, the group Housing Action Now have produced a Manifesto For the Right to Housing calling for an end to “market-based policies of debt-fuelled home ownership”. To deal with the housing crisis, which will only worsen if left to the private market, the provide a series of solutions including regulating the private rental sector, implementing a policy of zero evictions, providing social housing, and providing traveler specific accommodation.

“The manifesto provides a snapshot of the housing crisis and proposes clear, meaningful solutions in an accessible format. We hope it will also serve to bring together all those who believe in the right to housing and facilitate discussion on how we can bring this about”.

The manifesto will be launched today at 6pm in the Teacher’s Club on Parnell Square. A discussion on this crucial issue will follow.
A short version of the manifesto for online sharing is here. The full version is available here.

Cian O’Callaghan

Conference: Local Resistance, Global Crisis: developing communities of solidarity and Left Politics for the 21st Century

Global crisis, austerity, rising inequality, climate change, and the destruction of communities have been met in recent years with significant protest from new social movements, radical Left political parties and local campaigns.
This conference provides a space for academics and community and political activists to reflect and discuss diverse strategies, alternatives and politics that aim to progress social and spatial justice, radical equality, democracy, and human rights, from the local to the global level.

The Conference takes place on Friday June 13th and Saturday June 14th, Renehan Hall, South Campus, NUI Maynooth

To register contact the conference organiser, Dr Rory Hearne at the Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth at rory.hearne@nuim.ie

Local Resistance, Global Crisis: developing communities of solidarity and Left Politics for the 21st Century

Conference Programme
Friday June 13th
Renehan Hall, South Campus NUI Maynooth
9-9.30am
Registration & Tea/Coffee

9.30-11
Austerity & Resistance

• Neoliberal hegemony and socialist renewal in global society, Owen Worth (University of Limerick)
• Gender & Crisis Claire McGing (Department of Geography, NUIM)
• Crisis? What Crisis? Neighborhood strategies of survival in the Spanish Context Rosa Cerarols and Toni Luna, Universitat Pompeu Fabra of Barcelona
• The politics of resistance & transformation: Is Another Ireland/Another World Possible? Rory Hearne, Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth

11-11.15
Tea/Coffee

11.15 -1.15
State funding, partnership and democracy

• State Funding and Dissent, Brian Harvey (independent social researcher)
• Human Rights in Practice in Dolphin House, Debbie Mulhall (Rialto Rights InAction)
• The Experience of the Irish Traveller Movement, Brigid Quilligan (Director, ITM)
• Dissent or delusion: does state funding of Civil Society Organisation (CSO) advocacy enhance or undermine democracy? Anna Visser, Equality Studies Centre, UCD
• Searching for the “crack that lets the light in’ 25 years of community empowerment, Cecilia Forrestal, Community Action Network)
• The Men’s shed Movement in Ireland, John Evoy, Irish Men’s shed Association

1.15pm-2.15
Lunch Provided

2.15-4.15
Crafting a politics of hope: New Left Parties, new politics
• Does Ireland Need A New Left Party Helena Sheehan (DCU), Kathleen Lynch (UCD), Tom O Connor (CIT)
• A Review of the Left Wing Vote in the European and Local Elections 2014 Adrian Kavanagh (NUIM)
• Post-politics and Neoliberalism in Ireland, Cian O Callaghan, NUI Maynooth

4.15-4.30
Coffee

4.30-6pm
Key note presentations:
• Solidarities in pursuit of Social and Climate Justice David Featherstone, Department of Geography, Glasgow
• Crisis regimes, resistance and solidarity in Greece Costis Hadjimichalis, Department of Geography, Harokopio University, Athens

7.30 pm
Screening of PERIPHERAL VISION
• This documentary created by Donnacha Ó Briain, the award winning director of “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, chronicles the experiences of attempts by small groups to mobilize the public against the bank bailouts and austerity. Donnacha will give an introduction to the documentary and there will be a short discussion afterwards.

Saturday June 14th
9.30-10.30am
International perspectives and experiences
• Organising the anti-eviction movement in Spain: Michael Byrne (the Provisional University)
• Collective responses in Ireland to neoliberalization in a time of crisis: Learning from Latin America? Barry Cannon and Mary P. Murphy, Dept. of Sociology, National University of
• Exploring the Potentiality of Anti-Austerity Resistance in the UK, Department of Geography and Planning, Unviersity of Liverpool

10.30-11.30

11.30-1.30
Activist Reflections on strategies for future local and global resistance & solidarity in Ireland
• Shell to Sea (Maura Harrington)
• Spectacle of Defiance/Housing Action Now (John Bissett)
• SIPTU (Miriam Hamilton, Lead Organiser)
• We’re Not Leaving (Shane Fitzgerald)
• Claiming Our Future (Maureen Bassett)
• Migrants’ Rights Centre Ireland (Anatoliy Prymakov)
Please register to attend by email: rory.hearne@nuim.ie
Facebook: Conference: Local Resistance, Global Crisis
With the kind support of Department of Geography, NUIM, NIRSA and Network of Politics, Power and Society NUIM
Directions to Maynooth:
Maynooth campus map: http://www.nuim.ie/campus-life/campus-map
How to get to Maynooth: http://www.nuim.ie/location/maps