An Spréach Housing Action Committee

dublin | anti-capitalism | news report Thursday June 19, 2014 20:29 by An Spréach - An Spréach Housing Action Committee anspreach at hotmail dot com

An Spréach, meaning The Spark, is a small housing action group formed due to the housing crisis in Dublin and beyond. We aim to use and develop tactics to highlight the appalling housing situation faced by many ordinary people throughout Ireland. We seek, through the use of direct action, to liberate vacant housing as a campaigning method and as a means of providing accommodation for those in need.

We see the housing crisis caused directly by the irrational liberalisation,
privatisation and commodification of housing in Ireland. That is, by the policy pursued by repeated governments of placing responsibility for the provision of housing in the hands of private landlords, speculative developers, and financial debt merchants as opposed to an emphasis on publicly funded social housing projects, and the rational provision of housing stock.

In addition we identify the continued gentrification of hitherto working class areas in Dublin City as a growing problem. A process which is causing population displacement, the decimation of communities, and the increasing segregation of urban space between those able to afford high rent and housing purchase costs, as opposed to those unable to afford housing and who must leave their own communities.