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A HIGH COURT judge has told housing activists that they have three days to vacate an empty pub in Dublin city, after they said they would not end their occupation of the building.
The case returned to court today after Judge Brian Cregan had given the activists, Eoghan Lynch and Sean Doyle of the Revolutionary Housing League, time to seek legal advice and submit an affidavit. He had initially made an order one week ago requiring them to vacate the premises, but paused it to allow them time to get the legal advice they sought.
The building is owned by Black Sheep Investments, a firm co-founded by Jack Teeling, who is also co-director of the nearby Teeling Whiskey Distillery.
Lyndon MacCann, counsel for the defendant, told the court today that the activists have breached an order made by Cregan last week requiring the activists to stop inviting members of the public onto the premises at the former Ardee House pub in Dublin 8.
He outlined that since the parties have first appeared in the High Court, those occupying the former pub – which was vacant for a period of around 15 years – have hosted a café, a bike fixing workshop, an Irish language circle, a poetry workshop and a public meeting on gentrification in the Liberties.
He said that those occupying the property are “acting criminally”.
Judge Cregan described all of these as “worthwhile social activities” but he said that the housing activists are “trespassing” and that their social justice cause needs to be taken up with a “local TD” and those in “the Oireachtas”.
Doyle said that the owners of the former pub site are planning to build apartments that people local to the Liberties “won’t be able to afford” and that this will result in people being further “squeezed out of the area”.
“Mr Teeling could donate that property to the community,” he suggested, as he argued that the area has become built up to serve commercial interests but lacks community facilities that would allow people in the area to thrive.
Doyle said that in his view the courts and the State have acted criminally by allowing homelessness to rise exponentially in society in the last decade.
MacCann said that those occupying the building are entitled to have views on gentrification in the area but that they cannot act on them “unlawfully”.
He put forward that the building was broken into, and that members of the public have been invited in and are being put at risk as the building is not insured for these purposes.
Judge Cregan said that those occupying the building need to vacate it within three days of receiving the order.
He said that he has “immense sympathy” for people’s right to shelter, but he pointed out that the constitution, which Doyle referenced, also enshrines the right to private property.
“The issues you have raised are clearly pressing issues but they are a matter for Dáil Éireann and the Seanad,” he said.
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