Upcoming Events

National | Housing

no events match your query!

Blog Feeds

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Mainstream Naysayers Gather As Hopes Rise for Fourth Year of Record Coral on the Great Barrier Reef Thu Jul 31, 2025 09:00 | Chris Morrison
Despite three record years of coral growth, the mainstream media keeps pushing doom and gloom on the Great Barrier Reef ? a story that doesn't quite add up, says the Daily Sceptic's Environment Editor.
The post Mainstream Naysayers Gather As Hopes Rise for Fourth Year of Record Coral on the Great Barrier Reef appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Unless Migrant Crime Is Happening to Them Personally, Many Brits Simply Refuse to Believe It Even Ex... Thu Jul 31, 2025 07:00 | Steven Tucker
Britain's migrant crimewave is only invisible to those living in leafy delusion ? just ask Steven Tucker, who rips into the blind elites mistaking burning mattresses for cultural enrichment.
The post Unless Migrant Crime Is Happening to Them Personally, Many Brits Simply Refuse to Believe It Even Exists ? Especially Our Blinkered Rulers appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link News Round-Up Thu Jul 31, 2025 00:51 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Migration Adds 707,000 People to the Population of England and Wales in Just a YEAR ? The Second Lar... Wed Jul 30, 2025 19:00 | Richard Eldred
707,000 people have been added to the population of England and Wales in just one year ? 98% of them due to net migration ? making it the second-biggest rise in more than 75 years.
The post Migration Adds 707,000 People to the Population of England and Wales in Just a YEAR ? The Second Largest Jump Since 1945 appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Masking Our Schoolchildren Was Child Abuse ? A Rare Chance to Stop It Returning Wed Jul 30, 2025 17:00 | Dr Gary Sidley
Thanks to the Declaration of Dumfries, parents now have a real shot at suing councils that unlawfully forced masks on their children ? and at making sure this form of child abuse never happens again, says Gary Sidley.
The post Masking Our Schoolchildren Was Child Abuse ? A Rare Chance to Stop It Returning appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

Voltaire Network >>

First Base Project or Cheap Publicity Stunt?

category national | housing | news report author Thursday September 25, 2014 22:28author by An Spréach Report this post to the editors

The idea that we can tackle Ireland’s increasing homeless crisis by packing people into tightly fitted shipping containers is unfathomable, ill-conceived and an insult to injury to the countless number of homeless people in need of decent, adequate housing.
slum.jpeg

Although we would like to think we all have moved away from the days of the slum; spare a thought though for the beleaguered people of Moyross in Limerick and the other copious amount of disadvantaged and neglected communities around the country. Some spark in all his infinite wisdom has had the bright idea to resurrect a dark period in history characterised by substandard housing and squalor, and seeing fit to house people once again within these sordid conditions.

The notion of housing some of the most marginalised people in society into tightly packed shipping containers, no matter how pretty and fanciful on the inside these shipping containers may be, should never have been giving the light of day. This poor planning, if it can even be called that, illustrates just how far behind we are at the moment at bringing the housing crisis to an end, once and for all.

Are we really willing to spend an exuberant amount of taxpayers’ money shoving people like herd animals into tiny containers? Why does the ordinary Joe Soap have to suffer, again? Let’s not forget who created this crisis in the first place, why not bundle these people in there instead, and give proper homes to those in need?

Who in their right mind thought it acceptable to house people in this way in the first place? What kind of way is this to treat an already segregated and neglected section of society? Is this all the citizens of this country are worth—shipping containers?

The brain behind the operation
Martin Critten, a native English man living in Ireland these past ten years, and no stranger to publicity stunts himself, relatively recently walked from Limerick to Dublin in the hope of raising awareness for his fledgling political party, the National Independent Party. He is also the founder of First Base, the franchise pushing ahead with the idea of slum housing for many of Ireland’s citizens, and who according to Critten, if the containers are good enough for the military, then they must be good enough for the homeless.

Crittens’ reaction to the charges of ‘slum tenancy’ levelled against him and his campaign would be laughable if not so serious. In a carefully crafted statement on his website, First Base, Critten proclaims, beggars can’t be choosers. Reading it one will also find a sophistry of highly misleading arguments covered in all the trademarks of a well-adapted wannabe career politician, playing to the emotions like any ambitious demagogue would. It seems to be nothing more than a cheap publicity stunt aimed at garnisheeing some credibility for Crittens political career; in one word—opportunism.

While pushing his idea around, Critten may have found an unlikely ally in the most unlikely of places; within the self-proclaimed harbourers of social justice, and majority seat holders in Dublin City Council, Sinn Fein. Together with Critten and the NIP, members of SF have begun leaning toward the idea of the production of slums in a move that will set them on par course, riding roughshod over the backs of the homeless population in Ireland, to essentially what they see as an easy, albeit, temporary fix to a colossal problem; akin to sticking a plaster over a giant gaping wound.

If Sinn Fein remains intransigent with this preposterous idea, further substantive reparations down the line for the already downtrodden and persecuted citizens, may be forthcoming.

The ‘prefabs’ are only meant to be temporary, however, this will come as no consolation to the scores of homeless families being forced to live in temporary accommodation in hotels, some of which have already spent over 8 years or more of their lives living there in cramped and substandard conditions.

Moving people to and fro from one temporary accommodation to another is counterintuitive . . . but there is another way—make social housing a top priority. Simply build more homes, take back the vacant ones, and open up and redecorate the ones that have been left lying idle.

Currently, there are around 76 empty homes for every 1 homeless person in Ireland.

The citizens of this country deserve nothing but the best, let’s not sell them short, let’s give them exactly what they deserve—decent, adequate housing!

- An Spréach Spokesperson,
Tony N.

Related Link: http://anspreach.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/first-base-project-or-publicity-stunt/
author by fredpublication date Fri Sep 26, 2014 16:46author address author phone Report this post to the editors

ryanair for the first batch of jobless.
shipping containers for the rest

is there a pattern developing in Irish politician's thinking regarding the unemployed?
are they just unwanted cargo to be flown away or left to rot in shipping containers on the docks?

author by fredpublication date Fri Sep 26, 2014 18:11author address author phone Report this post to the editors

http://rt.com/op-edge/190296-dumpster-project-usa-envir...lity/

professor dumpster softens up the american poor for their future lives living in dumpsters.
If they are lucky enough to be able to afford their very own dumpster that is. Dumpsters aren't cheap y'know.
especially ones tastefully decorated with a harvard educated university professor's wages.

Currently many (and there are many!) destitute americans live in tents or on the streets.
Contrast this with the spoilt Irish poor who may get luxurious shipping crates. Oh the humanity!

Don't you just love capitalism? Every rat for himself, but at the bottom of the pyramid (the wide bit) you are always
just a few wage packets away from having to live exactly like a rat too.
In a dumpster or shipping crate eating out of bins to survive.

Meanwhile those at the top of the pyramid,( the narrow bit), sip fine champagne, dine in the finest restaurants and own
large property portfolios, yachts, cars and trophy wives. Lovely system.

author by Ingdopublication date Tue Oct 07, 2014 22:02author address author phone Report this post to the editors

All grand and rosy until the last part ''The citizens of this country deserve nothing but the best, let’s not sell them short, let’s give them exactly what they deserve—decent, adequate housing!''

I would be more of the opinion that everyone, regardless of phony citizenship or nationalism, is entitled to decent, adequate housing. It's a severe problem in Ireland that the left, and the liberals, frame everything within rights of citizens. Nationalism and national identity is like a disease and citizenship is a privilege that should be used to secure better conditions for all, everywhere, especially for those without a voice - namely, 'non-citizens'.

Maybe the author doesn't even realise the wincing he (or they, collectively) cause when he/they espouse(s) the rights of 'citizens' while the most vulnerable people on this island today are the opposite. Like I said, it's all grand, but I go away from this story with a bad taste in my mouth.

author by fredpublication date Wed Oct 08, 2014 02:09author address author phone Report this post to the editors

thats completely off topic and divisive sectarian shit ingdo.

You are trying to make the poster out to be a racist when nothing of the sort was implied

shit stirring of the highest order.

sectarian people like you are the real problem here for those trying to build fragile resistance movements

on the left. Paid troll if ever I saw one.

 
© 2001-2025 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy