Outside 35, Summerhill Parade in Dublin 1
This afternoon.
35 Summerhill Parade is a property owned by Pat and PJ O’Donnell (owners of POD, and sponsors of the Clare GAA team).
This house is part of a cluster of properties on Summerhill Parade owned by the O’Donnell family. All properties had similar issues with overcrowding, poor conditions and dodgy cash in-hand dealings.
A total of 120 tenants lived between the five properties, each paying between €350-€450 for a bed in a room of 6-8 people.
In May, a mass eviction occurred between the five properties resulting in these 120 tenants being illegally evicted over the duration of a week.
The O’Donnell’s bought Aldborough House, a derelict Georgian mansion, in 2016 and have recently got approval to develop this site into office spaces.
No consideration was given for the local community and their needs in these plans.
There have been push from the owners to create slum conditions in the area as a means to run housing prices down and buy up bargain properties to redevelop – after all, the workers in the O’Donnell’s new, plush office spaces are going to need equally plush places to live.
It’s a fine example of gentrification in action.
Since the evictions in May, these properties have sat empty while the housing crisis worsens.
Housing and community activists today have occupied the property of Summerhill Parade because enough is enough, Pat O’Donnell should not be allowed sit on these potential homes.
Rent hikes, evictions, poor housing conditions; people stuck in overcrowded homes, living in bunkbeds, or packed into their relative’s homes; people couch-surfing, sleeping rough, living in hostels, hotels and direct provision – we hear about these horrendous situations every day now, we all know somebody who is affected. And yet, those in power sit on their hands. There is no political will to make real, meaningful change to our housing crisis.
Our immediate demand:
Is that the houses owned by Pat O’Donnell on Summerhill Parade be compulsory purchased by Dublin City Council and given to the local community. We want to highlight that private, vacant properties can, and should be put into public ownership.
All vacant land and properties should be put under public ownership.
We call for people to take action and get involved in the housing movement, a wider demand of homes for all. Those interested in setting up similar occupations, please get in touch with the page.
The housing crisis is not a natural disaster; we do not need to accept that this is simply the way it is. But things won’t get better on their own – action is needed, by people and for people.
Statement from Summerhill Occupation this afternoon.
Following a rally outside the GPO on Dublin’s O’Connell Street, a group of housing activists occupied the vacant property at 35 Summerhill Parade .
Anyone who wishes to get involved, can contact the group here or email Dublincentralhousingaction@gmail.com or DCHAvolunteering@gmail.com.
The GPO rally, called ‘Take Back The City’, was hosted by North Dublin Bay Housing Crisis Community, Blanchardstown Housing Action Committee, Dublin central housing action, Dublin Renters’ Union, Take Back Trinity, Brazilian Left Front, and Migrants and Ethnic-minorities for Reproductive Justice.
Summerhill Occupation (Facebook)
Pics Sam Boal/Rollingnews, Irish Housing Network, Richard Chambers (Newstalk)
Yesterday: Meanwhile At The GPO
Full statement from the Summerhill occupation demanding action to be taken on the #HousingCrisis and a demand of #HousingForAll
BUILD PUBLIC HOUSING NOW https://t.co/EiwmAqAjzW pic.twitter.com/XHxjhKKuUO— Camp4PublicHousing (@4PublicHousing) August 8, 2018
According to the IT, the house is empty because a fire marshal shut it down due to fire safety concerns. There are far better buildings they could have used as an example than one which is a fire hazard.
Why was it a fire hazard? Probably connected to the fact that it was housing 6-8 people per room.
Probably something to do with that. There may be only one way out as well which would be slightly terrifying if anything happened. The fact that there has been seemingly no repercussions against the landlords for being a slum landlord and renting out fire hazards is somewhat worrying.
Summerhill is not in Drumcondra, I’d have thought.
( I was born 250 yards from that house so this might change everything if I’m wrong)
:)
Apologies Bertie. That’s fixed now. Thank you.
It is if you’re looking on Daft.
This is pointless. That need to bring it home to the politicians
How do you do that?
Is “occupied” the AffluentSouthCountyDublinian word for “broke in”?
welcome to the post truth era.
If granny is in a nursing home & she’s a few years left in her, if you sell the house while she’s still alive dont you have to cough up the full amount for the nursing home costs every week, whereas if u hold onto the asset, you pay about a quarter to the state.. why would people sell up when this is the case like?
I’m actually surprised at how little mention this gets with the talk of empty houses.
This is the reason for a fair amount of empty residential housing in Dublin
but that isn’t the case here
it’s owned by a property developer who has left it vacant for several years – it’s all detailed in the statement they released
You’re saying it has been vacant for several years; the statement above is saying is that it was rented out with 6-8 people to a room – at least one of these declarations must be incorrect.
i am correct – pretty much always. you can take that as a consistent given. whoever else you’re referring to is incorrect. wilfully so, probably. i hate liars.
Here –
https://www.rte.ie/lifestyle/living/2017/0310/858775-a-fair-deal-the-cost-of-nursing-home-care/
Your income and assets will be subject to a Financial Assessment in order to work out your contribution for the care.
Basically, you contribute:
80% of your total income
7.5% of the value of any assets per annum (5% if the application was made before 25 July 2013)
However, the first € 36,000 of your assets, or € 72,000 for a couple, will not be counted at all in the Financial Assessment. Where your assets include land and property, the 7.5% contribution based on such assets may be deferred and paid to Revenue after your death, known as the Nursing Home Loan.
Your principal residence will only be included in the Financial Assessment for the first 3 years of your time in care. This is known as the 22.5% or ‘three-year cap’ (the cap is 15% for applications made before 25 July 2013).
This means that you will pay a 7.5% contribution, based on your principal residence for a maximum of 3 years regardless of the length of time you spend in nursing home care.
7.5 x 3 max = 22.5%, as opposed to paying for the full costs if Granny sells up.. and she could live for a while. €1,325 per week x 52 weeks = 69k PA approx.
Might be a fairly influential factor for housing laying idle.
There are at least 3 of them on my estate at the moment. They are in a terrible state at the moment with either smashed or boarded up windows. Seemingly, they have to be left empty until the relative dies so that they can be sold easily. Does anyone know if that is true? Seems like a fairly crazy idea what with the state of the rental market at the moment.
As far as I know, a relative can live in the property, but can’t pay rent. Any money made in the property in that regard has to be declared and taken as part of the Fair Deal scheme. I’m not sure if I have that entirely right though so feel free to correct me.
I think you’re right…
I bet it’s a huge issue. better off leaving a property sit idle.
Actually what you’d be better off doing is signing over your house to whoever you’d be leaving to anyway, before u head into the nursing home… that way they can’t get the 22.5% of your asset, as you have no asset.
Your heir would be liable for capital gains tax if you did that.
They don’t ‘have’ to be left idle no..Just read the details of the link I posted.
If the relatives sell up while the person is in the nursing home they have to pay the full costs of their care.. if they keep the asset the state take 22.5% after granny departs..
“Your heir would be liable for capital gains tax if you did that.”
Forgot to check back on this one…
Capital Acquisition tax.
Gift tax exemptions are at the same amounts as inheritance tax, for children at least.
I think it’s 350k.
Look it up.
Here –
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/money_and_tax/tax/capital_taxes/capital_acquisitions_tax.html#ld5162
Group A.
That’s at 2016. It’s currently 350k I think.
So, if you don’t have an asset, you don’t lose 25% of it to the state for nursing home costs.
In other words, you could gift the house to a child.. your house will not be assessed then for nursing home costs, as you don’t have a house.
https://www.rte.ie/lifestyle/living/2017/0310/858775-a-fair-deal-the-cost-of-nursing-home-care/
1.Sell Your Home
Sell the home and simply pay a nursing home an average €1,325 per week (rate is for St Joseph’s, Crinken Glen, Co. Dublin ) until your money runs out.
On an average € 300K home, that’s just under four and a half years, and as Willie Nelson sang “you’re on the road again”.
On the road again, as in out on your ear.. homeless.
Excellent work guys.
*Clap clap*
Its a stunt for sure, but a very worthy one.
CPO derelict houses DCC.
Suppose they belong to people in Nursing homes?
CPO them and turf out the elderly onto the street?
DCC have very specific conditions for what constitutes a derelict house.
The property has to be hopelessly unsuited for habitation (often in danger of falling down), and usually the owner will either not engage, or will fight, determined to preserve the property as a rubbish-heap for nefarious land-banking motives. Elderly folk returning from a stint in a nursing home will generally not be re-occupying such properties.
The trouble is, once a property gets entered onto the Derelict Properties Register (numbering ~300 properties), usually no action takes place. DCC might CPO 4 or 5 properties annually, and even then renovation is often years in waiting.
DCC’s Derelict Properties section is simply not legally muscular enough to do this work at the scale it needs to be done.
{I will of course grant you that this house in Summerhill is simply vacant and not derelict. It would be pretty dangerous to occupy a truly derelict house. But it’s well suited for today’s purpose}
This doesn’t belong to someone in a nursing home. This is nonsense.
brazilian left front?
they want Neymar homeless people
A better fit than ‘Migrants and Ethnic-minorities for Reproductive Justice’, in fairness.
AKA Bobby Firmino.
Where’s Glen when you need him?
What exactly are these people looking to achieve?
Houses in that area cost upwards of 260,000. We have in a situation now where many people are turning down affordable house offers because in their opinion is too far away from their mammy’s. There are some genuine cases of neglect but the vast majority are bullshit claims.
I am all for helping people but what is the point when those people will not help themselves.
Most of the rest of us have had to make calculated decisions and cutbacks to cover mortgage repayments, rent, insurance, local property tax et cetera.
I don’t want to sound too harsh but in many cases people just need to get the finger out and get on with it. 2 activists on the far left it is always somebody else’s fault. Personal responsibility never seems to enter the equation.
Look at some of the ragtag groups that made up the protest.
“Take back Trinity” – from whom exactly?
“Brazilian left front” – wtf
“Migrants and Ethnic-minorities for Reproductive Justice.” – ah hear now.
This sounds like a day out full of lols and memes for the lads.
I think that’s a personal grooming style JD
Left Front
and Back
which reminds me…………
better get me own bits tidied up
non symmetrical personal grooming, my image too.
I forgot that you’re a fan of the Brazilian, Frill.
No Mill
I’m a Californian girl
Yerself?
get a pair of crossed hurleys shaved in there, take a photo of it and use it as your new avatar.
jaysus don’t give her ideas like that
That’s it Frilly an advert for a hairdresser…
Left, Front or Brazilian?
When you do something or even suggest a good alternative action then you can piss on their chips.
What did you achieve today?
probably no more
or less
than yerself
I’m not calling the protest action pointless. Do you see the difference? I was replying to John F the PC slayer.
Well, I went to work, which will mean that I can pay the mortgage at the end of the month; in practical terms, this will probably go a lot further to providing housing for immigrants than their protest.
Pat yourself on the back Rob. Your rosette and special certificate is in the post.
What does one have to do to get a medal around here?!
What do they want? For the government to do something… Anything to alleviate the Hillsborough disaster that is the Dublin housing situation
What can the government actually do?
One of the biggest issues here is that the housing crisis is not the result of policy, nor is it the result of a lack of policy within the current confines of the law, and how our society works.
The housing crisis is an emergent indirect result of our move away from a primary and secondary economy to a services-driven economy. We don’t make stuff anymore in our capital cities, and we don’t need people to make stuff.
During the boom we started to convert brownfield sites from our old economy into offices and accommodation for the burgeoning service economy and its workers, however property itself then infected the economy with speculative investment, and the wrong accommodation was built in the wrong locations. And now the government is broke from propping up a broken economy, and to a much lesser extent, a few banks.
The transition to a services economy is now continuing apace, and the offices are being built but no houses. Apartments are needed to support this new economy, but those that are built will be mostly close to tertiary economy jobs and priced accordingly for the land itself and the apartments built upon it.
Like in many cities before it the ‘working man’ in Dublin is fecked, and will be pushed out into less desired suburbs, and ultimately accommodated in midrise apartments as a best-case scenario.
Government can do little other than override local development plans and allow more mid and high rise apartments over the heads of Dublin City Council. Another problem is that local interests and lobbies have wasted the potential of Dublin’s docklands, with the last site now being sold for more 6-8 floor buildings. The result will be a land grab by commercial builders for brownfield sites that are needed for residential. Gentrification will follow and push people out some more.
This will now take a generation to fix from a housing perspective, and the education and skills problem is at this point intractable, with the unskilled worker in Dublin facing a miserable future of increased deprivation as they do in other cities with advanced economies.
This kind of action as a reaction is probably justified, but hopeless, as the economy is a machine that will chew people up and spit it out. It has momentum which is positive for the ABC1 demographic, and negative for the C2DE demographic. The social upheaval required to stop this way of living is unlikely as wealth is sufficient if you’re in the right demographic, and there is a possibility to join it with skills for some who will take it, albeit from a very disadvantaged path, rather than fighting it.
Good stuff Ronan
I remember meself the priority to deliver commercial accommodation over residential being heavily criticised
around the late 90s early noughties
and the response was some tax relief and urban renewals, with over the shop type developments being particularlly mentioned
anyway
no matter who or what Local Authority
nothing was going to stop the Re-Zoning of everything
from bogs to grave yards
based on whims and reactions to shortages and outrage
Alright, let’s say the DCC did a full audit of all rental properties between the canals.. The cheap labour our FG buddies need would be on the streets in their thousands.. Hundreds of unscrupulous landlords and their unofficial hostels would be put out of business in a stroke…the government can enforce the law but it wouldn’t suit the men who stuff their parties pockets
“It’s a fine example of gentrification in action.”
– I wonder how many members of ‘Take Back Trinity’, ‘Brazilian Left Front’, or the ‘Migrants and Ethnic-minorities for Reproductive Justice’ are originally from the north inner-city themselves…
Doesn’t matter. The house had 6-8 people per room before. Those people being exploited weren’t from the inner city originally and there were probably a lot of Brazilians among them.
I promise you the landlord isn’t from the area either.
A very good point, imo.
So, what your saying is that the people protesting were happy enough when they were the gentrifiers, moving in and displacing people from the north inner city from these flats, but now that they are the ones who might be getting gentrified, gentrification is now a big problem?
Ha! some gentrification, 6-8 people per room. Wise up.
Can a terraced house ever be called a mansion ?
Looks a bit pokey to me.
That’s not Aldborough House: it clearly states it’s 35 Summerhill Parade.
Aldborough House is definitely a mansion.
Ah right.
I’m easily confused.
Still,this is an illegal occupation of private property legally owned by the O’Donnells.
I might just come round your gaff tonight and occupy the place because what you’re doing with it doesn’t fit in with my views.
You did a long time ago, we’ve been trying evict you for generations, time to leave Ollie:)
hehe
We still own the ground rent.
Quite a lot of it actually …
But good comeback anyway …
A compulsory purchase order can be used to buy a property only if it is dangerous or derilect, and with the derilect property levy they have no incentive to buy them up.
You’d think the thousands of people on waiting lists for homes and all those homeless children would be an incentive…