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LAST UPDATE | 17 Jun 2025
HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE have gathered for a rally outside Leinster House this evening calling for urgent government action on the housing crisis.
The ‘Raise the Roof’ protest on Molesworth Street was coordinated by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which has described the crisis as “the greatest political failure of our time”.
The protest is supported by most opposition parties.
People Before Profit’s Paul Murphy says today’s Raise the Roof housing protest outside the Dáil has to be a launchpad for further action.
— Jane Matthews (@janeematthews) June 17, 2025
“We cannot wait for the next election, we cannot wait until there are 20,000 homeless people.”
@thejournal_ie pic.twitter.com/RgMFlzMel6
Flags for the opposition parties, as well as a number of trade union groups, could be seen among the crowd this afternoon.
A number of opposition leaders and TDs addressed the crowd, including Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, Labour leader Ivana Bacik, Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne and People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy, who arrived back in Ireland from Egypt earlier today.
The rally is timed to coincide with a private members’ motion tabled by opposition parties in the Dáil, which calls for emergency action on the housing and homelessness crisis – including increased investment in public housing, action to protect private renters, and a reintroduction of the ban on no-fault evictions.
The protest also featured speeches and performances by folk singer Lisa O’Neill, punk singer Meryl Streek, writer and artist Veronica Dyas, folk singers Jimi Cullen and Martin Leahy.
Musician Meryl Streek kicked off the protest with a performance of his song about the housing crisis “If This is Life” #RaisetheRoof @thejournal_ie pic.twitter.com/8brPuq7GpY
— Jane Matthews (@janeematthews) June 17, 2025
Speaking at the protest, Mary Lou McDonald said: “We are here because we are sick and tired of the housing emergency.”
“Look to the hostels and the B&Bs in this city and beyond and what do you see? Children who in their childhood call a hostel or a B&B home. Shameful.
“I grew up in the 1980s and this city was poor, we battled with a drug epidemic, with poverty, with mass emigration, with unemployment.
“But I tell you, we didn’t see the like of that.
“I never thought that I could feel so much shame here in this city that I love when people are sleeping in doorways and in tents and on the banks of canals, and somehow that has been normalised. Shame. Shame on a government that normalises homelessness at that scale,” she said.
The protest comes shortly after opposition TDs accused the government of implementing changes that will lead to rent hikes for tenants.
Mary Lou McDonald told Taoiseach Micheál Martin that incoming changes to the rental sector will be a “blueprint to boost the profit of the big boys and to screw over renters”.
Ivana Bacik also asked Martin when the government will “take political responsibility for the housing crisis”, and said that Labour does not support a “hollowed out version” of Rent Pressure Zones “that offer no real protections for renters.”
With reporting from Jane Matthews
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