"Go Take It Up With Your TD", Judge Tells Community Center Activists As He Evicts Them

A High Court judge has ordered housing activists to leave the Anne Devlin Community Center operating from a vacant Dublin pub, telling them to “take up" their "social justice cause with your local TD” and the "Oireachtas" if they want to change housing policy, adding, in line his liberal sensibilities, that he has "sympathy" for those affected by the housing crisis.

Judge Brian Cregan gave members of the Revolutionary Housing League three days to vacate the former Ardee House pub in Dublin 8, which they had occupied and used for community events including a café, bike workshop and Irish language classes.

While describing the activities as worthwhile, the judge said the group was trespassing on private property and that issues around housing, homelessness and gentrification should be addressed through the political system rather than an "criminal" occupation.

The activists said that it is precisely the State which has acted "criminally" by allowing homelessness to rise exponentially in society in the last decade. 

Homelessness and precarious living situations have become commonplace in Ireland. Recently, the Health Research Board reported that 124 people died while sleeping rough in 2022. The FF/FG government does not represent the will of Ireland - they have sold off the country to foreign capitalist interests, the EU, Brussels and America.