WHEN IT COMES to Ireland’s housing crisis, it’s fair to say we’ve endured some long-term pain.
It’s been roughly a decade of missed housing targets, house prices exploding ever upwards, Airbnb eating into the rental supply and whatever else you’re having yourself.
Fear not, however, as this week it was confirmed that we have entered the short-term pain phase of the housing crisis. Granted, from where we’re all standing, short-term pain at the end of long-term pain sort of feels the same as even-longer-term pain, but we have been reassured this week by Minister for Housing James Browne that the plan is, in fact, working.
Following hot on the heels of evictions increasing by 51% year on year for Q1 (listen to me! Q1! Who do I think I am, Kendall Roy?), we’ve learned that rents have also surged to record levels during the same period. So in the space of seven days, we’ve learned that there’s been a sharp increase in people being kicked out of their homes, and the ones that still have homes are paying more money for the privilege than ever before. This is apparently the plan, and it is apparently working.
“You cannot solve the housing crisis, you cannot solve the homeless crisis, you cannot solve the renting crisis without more properties”, said the Minister, echoing the same critiques that have been made of his department since someone first noticed that demand had begun to so catastrophically outstrip supply in Ireland. Yeah, we know that, James? That’s why we’ve been begging you to build more of them?
Unfortunately, it seems that a more accurate distillation of Browne’s logic would be this: “You cannot solve the housing crisis, you cannot solve the homeless crisis, you cannot solve the renting crisis without more very, very happy landlords”.
It is the earnest argument of the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael alliance that has governed Ireland since 2016 that the state of affairs is just about to give way to a healthy housing market. Just last weekend, Taoiseach Micheál Martin told his party’s Ard Fheis that it was a top priority to restore hope in the housing market. All we need are just a few more landlords who are properly incentivised to rent out their properties and we can put this whole thing behind us.
This week, Martin’s focus was pulled back in the direction of Palestine as several Irish citizens were detained, brutalised and humiliated on camera by Israeli authorities who intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla. One of those taken captive on international waters was Margaret Connolly, the sister of President Catherine Connolly. Tánaiste Simon Harris has described the capture of the flotilla activists as “illegal”.
Centre-stage throughout the humiliation ritual was Israel’s Minister for National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, standing over his captives, waving an Israel flag and saying, “Welcome to Israel. We are the landlords”. The video provoked a backlash amongst world leaders that has not been seen for some time, with even US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee condemning Ben-Gvir’s actions.
The taunting is the point, of course. The triumphalism is the point. The cruelty is the point. Itamar Ben-Gvir is not getting carried away with himself. This is simply what it looks like when a vicious, violent man is free to luxuriate in his impunity. Many of those who were kidnapped from the high seas have reported serious injuries and barbaric treatment at the hands of their captors.
The point has been made a million and one times before, but it bears repeating: if this is what the state of Israel is comfortable with us seeing, if this is what they feel comfortable doing to the relatively well-off white citizens of countries, many of whom are diplomatic and trade allies to Israel, just imagine the barbarity being unleashed upon Palestinians, people who Ben-Gvir doesn’t even consider human. The Israeli prison service has denied all claims of abuse.
Bringing such behaviour back to the forefront of public consciousness is precisely the value of a venture like the Global Sumud Flotilla. Exposing the wanton brutality of the Israeli regime reminds the world once again that this is a rogue state that cannot be trusted to act with even the barest modicum of decency.
In the aftermath of the incident, Taoiseach Micheál Martin wrote to the President of the European Council António Costa, calling for the EU-Israel trade agreement to be suspended. That’s how you know it was bad. After all, it’s Micheál Martin’s cabinet which has dragged its heels for so long over the Occupied Territories Bill, it’s his government which voted against sanctioning Israel midweek, and he personally has called for Ireland’s upcoming Nations League match against Israel to go ahead.
Martin himself has admitted that the video footage has ‘accelerated’ the impetus for EU action against Israel. Whether this amounts to anything more than a thousandth attempt at calling for international law to be respected remains to be seen, and there is little reason to hope for anything that resembles real action from those best placed to act.
By the time you read this first thing Saturday morning (before you’ve made your coffee or kissed your adoring spouse or whatever it is normal people do on Saturday mornings), it’s possible we’ll have a solid sense of how Friday’s byelections have gone, and whether dissatisfaction with the government will cost them on an electoral level. One of the most shocking prospects, of course, is that Gerard Hutch might end up taking Paschal Donohoe’s old seat in Dublin Central.
Hutch has swung hard to the right throughout his campaign, calling for the internment of immigrants from certain parts of the world. “They should be interned. The ones that are Somalians and them type of people, no way. Interned,” Hutch has said on social media.
It is more than disturbing that the Dublin Central byelection has seen people from central and eastern Africa made into a political punching bag. It is against this backdrop that we see echoes of Israel’s cruelty in the Irish context.
Yves Sakila, a Congolese man who had been living in Ireland since he was a young teenager, died somewhere between the Arnott’s entrance on Henry St and the Mater Hospital last week. A video shared widely online reveals a scene in which at least five men are seen restraining him on the floor. The video shows a man who appears to put his knee on Sakila’s neck, and throughout the video, Mr Sakila’s body is pretty much entirely covered by the five men. Just as disturbingly, the video shows dozens of people standing idly by as the scene unfolds.
While there has been widespread uproar over Mr Sakila’s death — including a significant protest on Thursday — Ireland’s own cruelty could be seen on social media, where many comments struck the same triumphalistic tone that is the hallmark of Itamar Ben-Gvir. Some comments have gleefully evoked some twisted idea of karma, as if possibly shoplifting from Arnotts is worthy of a violent death. Others, desperate for attention, clout and clicks, have gone further and attacked the character of the deceased, cashing in their humanity for a few likes on social media from the global network of far-right freaks.
Itamar Ben-Gvir may have been taunting bound, injured Irish prisoners thousands of miles away as they lay prone on the ground. The sad truth is that there is no shortage of Irish people whose attitudes are just the same.