The Blindboy Podcast - How Berlin voted out Vulture Funds

Episode Date: September 29, 2021

Berlin just voted to socialise 240,000 homes. Taking them from the ownership of investment funds. I chat to social policy and housing expert Dr Rory Hearne about how this happened, and what it means for Ireland and other countries that are facing a housing crisis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The September leaves are wilting on their twigs. I hope none of them perfectly canopy a submission of dog shit when they fall. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. You carefree Cassandras. If you're new to this podcast, I always recommend going back to some earlier episodes, or even beginning at the start, which is something a lot of people do, to introduce yourself to the lore of this podcast.

If you're a regular listener, you know the crack. So, with this week's podcast, it's going to be about something current. I tend not to have my podcasts very current. I tend not to make a podcast about something that's happening right now because when I do that it kind of dates the podcast and then it sounds weird to listen back to

which is why when I say to you listen back to some earlier podcasts because I tend not to date my podcasts very heavily you can go back and listen to something from 2018 and it won't matter, you know. But with this week's podcast, I do want to make it about something current because something very important has happened and I really, really want to draw attention to it because it has global importance and it's globally significant in terms of social change.

So I have listeners to this podcast all around the world. So chances are, wherever you're listening to this podcast from, especially if it's a city, I would wager that a huge worry in your life is the rent that you pay your landlord. a huge worry in your life is the rent that you pay your landlord all around the world rents are becoming really really high to the point that it's impacting the quality of life of an entire generation the world over it's particularly bad in ireland in dublin in particular we've got a homeless crisis which we haven't seen the likes of it since around the time of the famine I'd say you have the psyche of a generation

in Ireland has been impacted by this you've people in their fucking late 20s, 30s, 40s living at home with their parents you have people who have given up on the concept of actually owning their own home because all who have given up on the concept of actually owning their own home because all their money is going on rent you have people not being able to have children because

they can't afford to have children because they have to worry about paying the rent they also have the insecurity of a home so they're not having children for that reason. You could be an adult in your 30s in Ireland, in a long-term relationship, and you don't have the agency or choice to live with your partner, because neither of you can afford to live together. You might live with three strangers in the same bedroom in Dublin and this is happening to people who did what they thought was the right thing to do people who went to college people who chose a career people who have a good job have a good salary and a good

wage I don't intend to be classist by saying that because I simply believe that everybody should have access to housing regardless of how much money they earn. That's my belief. I don't think that access to housing should depend upon how much you earn or healthcare or education for that matter. But I am highlighting the fact that

people who are earning a lot of money can't afford rent in Dublin. That's the point that I'm making. That's how bad things are. And in Galway, and in Cork, and it's happening in Limerick, and in Toronto, and in Melbourne,

and in New York, and in San Francisco, and in Barcelona, the list goes on. The single greatest issue that is impacting the quality of life of an entire generation in ireland now is housing and it's that simple and we're seeing this the world over so why is this what's that about why why in every major city in the world is our rents just terrifyingly extortionate well a huge contributing factor is investment funds also known as vulture funds. So what's happening is an investment fund is a giant faceless pile

of cash okay imagine it as thousands and thousands of people, people's pensions, people with little investments, little bits of money here and there or incredibly, people's pensions, people with little investments, little bits of money here and there, or incredibly rich people, putting all their money into one big pile and then the fund, which is like a corporation, manages this pile of money and then it takes this huge, huge billions, this pile of money that loads of people own and then it buys property with it. that loads of people own and then it buys property with it so investment funds are buying property the world over and then profiting from it through renting and then what happens is the investment fund grows because it's profiting from the rent and then if you invested in that you get a return on your investment and these investment funds a lot of it is people's pensions and stuff like that but you're seeing a massive generational transfer of wealth and what you're also seeing is the one percent the rise of the one percent the the huge wealth inequality in the world right now which

is continually growing the gap is getting larger and larger and one of the reasons for this too is it's real post recession shit we had what we call the great recession in 2008 well when that happened a lot of people average people lost their homes lost their businesses right so a lot of people were left quite poor but the buildings were still standing now they were quite cheap because everyone was poor who had the money investment funds and this is why sometimes people call investment funds vulture funds because they're picking at the carcass of the recession and now this situation is kind of out of control to the point that people don't have a quality of life put it this way if let's just say you live in Dublin

or San Francisco or London okay and because you must rent because you don't have the option to live with your parents

and you definitely can't get a house because they're too expensive so now you must rent if here's my little hot take around it. This is what concerns me about this. There was a system of governance, if you want to call it,

or an economic system in the Middle Ages called feudalism, where serfs and peasants didn't own their own property. They didn't have individual freedom or liberty. They basically worked for a lord or a noble and that was it. Well, the investment fund situation is teetering the world towards that a little bit again. If your choices and personal freedoms are starting to feel coerced because you must rent and because your rent is too high, then that's starting to dip into feudalism

territory if you'd like to have children but you won't and can't because it doesn't seem feasible due to how you can access or afford a home then the system is coercing you similarly if if you have a partner and you can't live with them, if you have a husband or a wife and you can't live with them because you're up in Dublin and to live together is beyond your means, so instead you have to live separately with three other people in a room, then the system is coercing you

and that looks a little bit like feudalism. So agency and control and self-determination and liberty are gradually being taken away from an entire generation the world over and then you take into consideration the climate crisis and the next 100 years and it's like fuck that i don't like the sound of this what can we do now to stop this shit now if you want to learn more about this, I've been passionate and interested in this issue for fucking years. I made a documentary in 2016 called Blind Boy Understroys the World Housing. I made it for the BBC where I investigated this entire system, the entire global system of housing and rent. And I did it with a team of journalists. It was about a year's work. So it

wasn't just me baiting away on a laptop. It was me working with a team of journalists. It was about a year's work. So it wasn't just me baiting away on a laptop. It was me working with a team of journalists, doing a lot of research. It got long-listed for a BAFTA. I was very happy with it. So if you want to see, if you want to learn more about that system, get a look at that documentary, Blind By Understroyed's Housing. And it used to be on BBC Player, but I think someone uploaded it to YouTube now, so you can watch it anywhere.

And I looked at that entire system think someone uploaded it to YouTube now, so you can watch it anywhere. And I looked at that entire system, from the big to the small. And I even looked into how some investment funds, now not all, but how some investment funds are actually used as a way to launder huge amounts of actual criminal mafia cash. But anyway, why do I want to do the podcast this week about investment funds? Because this weekend in berlin the people of berlin got together and said enough is enough and they had a referendum a public vote and 56 percent of people voted to expropriate property from investment funds specifically to about 250,000 apartments in Berlin

that are controlled, are owned by these investment funds, the people of Berlin have voted and said, no, the state, we have a referendum that says you must now sell these properties to the state and the state will turn these private properties into social housing housing that is available to whoever needs it regardless of their income and the people of berlin did that over the weekend now it's a non-binding referendum which means that a few more hoops need to be jumped through but still the people of berlin got together and democratically said, no fucking way, this isn't right.

Our rents are too high. Housing should be a human right. Fuck off. And it's hugely inspirational. I think it's something that everyone should be talking about. I didn't see enough of it on the news for something so important. And it's deeply relevant to everybody in the world. To everyone in every city in the world.

It's like, hold on a second, look at what Berlin is just after doing. How can we do that? So what I'm doing is I'm bringing back on a guest who I had on only shortly ago, about two months ago. I'm bringing back on Dr. Rory Hearn. And Rory is an expert in social policy in Maynooth University. And he specializes in housing. And he's an expert in this field. So I'm bringing Rory back on to speak about what happened in Berlin,

to speak about to speak about what happened in berlin to speak about investment funds to speak about what we in ireland are you in canada or wherever the fuck what we as people can do to stop the exploitation of housing by investment funds and also we speak about cita which is a trade agreement that hasn't been signed yet between Canada and Europe which is something that would threaten people's capacity to follow in the footsteps of a place like Berlin and before I get into the interview um one of the first steps that the people of Berlin took is they collectivized. They organized together through tenants unions. And in Ireland, there's a union called CATU, Community Action Tenants Union.

Their website is catuireland.org. And I'll just read out how they describe themselves. What is KATU? KATU Ireland is a union for communities and tenants. That means renters, council tenants, mortgage holders and people in emergency and precarious living situations. By a union, we mean you and your fellow members coming together to combat common problems.

An organisation fighting for collective gains in the homes, communities and lives of all our members. So if you're concerned about housing, if you're concerned about your rent, I strongly advise you check out Catoo Ireland and consider becoming a member of Catoo. So check that out. That's how you build a collective. That's a union. member of KATU. So check that out. That's how you build a collective. That's a union. And organisations and collectives like that were hugely important for the people of Berlin in getting this referendum. Because we can have that in Ireland too. We can have that in Ireland. I'm going to give Rory a little plug before we get into the interview. Because it was very kind of Rory. To come on to this podcast.

For a second time. Rory has a book called Housing Shock. By Rory Hearn. And it's basically about. It's about housing. It's about everything he's going to be talking about here. So check out that book by Rory. I'm going to go straight into the ocarina pause now.

So that my chat with Rory. Isn't interrupted. So here's the ocarina pause now so that my chat with Rory isn't interrupted. So here's the ocarina. Wear that cape, be that superhero. On Saturday, March 23rd, it's Marvel Superhero Night in Rock City.

You dress up as your favorite superhero and watch the Toronto Rock drop the hammer on the Halifax Thunderbirds at 7 p.m. at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. Punch your ticket to Marvel Superhero Night on Saturday, March 23rd at 7 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. On April 5th, you must be very careful, Margaret. It's a girl.

Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen. Evil things of evil. It's all for you. No, no, don't. The First Omen. I believe the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what?

It's the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real. It's not real. What's not real? Who said that?

The First Omen. Only in theaters April 5th. That was the Ocarina Pause. You would have heard an advertisement there. I don't know what for. It's algorithmically generated and inserted by Acast. Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page.

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And if you can't afford to pay me for the work I'm doing, you're paying for the person who can't afford. So it's a lovely model based on kindness and soundness. Everybody gets a podcast. can't afford to pay me for the work I'm doing. You're paying for the person who can't afford. So it's a lovely model based on kindness and soundness. Everybody gets a podcast. I get to earn a living. Also, quite importantly, what it does is it means the content of this podcast is independent. Advertisers can't tell me what to chat about. They can't say it to me. They can't edit my content in any way and if they were to try I have the agency to tell them to go fuck themselves and this is a real thing I'll give you an example recently I recently I contributed to it was a charity organization we're doing

something about homelessness and it was to be broadcast on television. And I contributed a piece to this. And it was basically a few words where I speak about the crisis of homelessness in Ireland. And how I support this charity. And the things I usually speak about. But what I included in the few words I said was. So I spoke about homelessness is bad. I'm very concerned about this.

I'd like to see a solution. I spoke about that. But I also said in Ireland, and this is a fact, in Ireland, the government has put the solution for homelessness to the private market. So we have a system in Ireland right now called emergency accommodation which means that if you're homeless in Ireland and you want temporary housing emergency accommodation you're put into a hotel so there's hotels and other places all around Ireland and they receive money from the government to give homeless people emergency accommodation but the problem is there's a lot of money to be made there so there are businesses in Ireland

profiting from homelessness so because of that you're actually not seeing a solution you're seeing families living in hotel rooms for fucking years in inhumane conditions and the hotel is profiting massively from government money. So how can you have a situation where homelessness is to be solved when a huge amount of money is to be made from homelessness? They've turned people's misery into a commodity that can be milked. That was cut out of the broadcast. It was okay that I said that homelessness was bad. It was okay that I said I'd like a solution. But when I said there are businesses in Ireland profiting from homelessness,

the TV station cut that out. Now, I don't know why, because it's a fact. I'm not lying. That's a fact. That's what emergency accommodation is. It's an atrocity. It's a stain on, because it's a fact. I'm not lying. That's a fact. That's what emergency accommodation is. It's an atrocity. It's a stain on Ireland. It's a fact. And I'm guessing it was cut out because it probably would have upset a few advertisers.

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Follow me on Twitch, twitch.tv forward slash theblindboypodcast. So here's my interview with Dr. Rory Hearn, who is an expert in social policy, is an expert in the area that we're chatting about. And if the previous 15 minutes or whatever, if that sounded bleak, because the situation is bleak this conversation

with Rory is not necessarily bleak, this is an empowering and hopeful conversation that shows options solutions and possibilities and that's why I wanted to do it this week

I don't want to do a podcast where we all hear about how terrible the renting situation is and walk away from it feeling like crap. You don't need that. I want people to feel empowered and to feel a sense of agency and to see a roadmap for, ah, this is what we can try to do here. So I want you to walk away from this podcast with that feeling and i hope you do also if you enjoy the chat with rory i spoke to him about eight podcasts back in an episode called how to solve the housing crisis where we spoke about housing

in general here we go so rory can you tell us what happened there in Berlin why is it important and how can we do this in Ireland because people online are like not only people in Ireland everyone around the world America people in London are going holy fuck have you seen what Berlin are after doing how can we have a bit of that yeah it's it's really inspiring i think it's you know i haven't been working on the housing crisis and your listeners know you know the impact of the housing crisis and we talked about it the last day on people's mental health on people's lives is just it's horrific and we only heard last week you know the poor lady in her 50s living in a shed um with just running water that's in ireland because she can't afford

the rent we have students this week going to soup kitchens in cork yeah they can't afford the rent so this housing crisis so what's happened in berlin and i why i think it gives us a bit of hope is because so what has happened in berlin for people who haven't a clue what what did berlin just do so the people of berlin just voted in a referendum which they organized and held and the referendum has called on their local government to essentially buy or expropriate which is a big word and has a lot of connotations in it essentially take or buy back housing units off the big what we would call vulture funds real estate corporate landlords who control a lot of property in berlin and what this referendum does is it really marks i think one of the biggest

challenges to the drive of global finance to take over our homes and convert generation rent into permanent commodities for them this is the first big slap in the face back um because that's what we're seeing globally we're seeing large investment funds basically buying up swathes of property and then they make their money from rent and that that money then is pensions of older people and stuff like that and just people who are investing, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. And this isn't just some benign, you know, investors are investors, they make money, they set up a business.

The global strategy of these companies, these funds, is to actually create a permanent renting class. They want a new feudalism. They do. Absolutely. They do. And in Ireland, we can see it as a sort of, it's been referred to as the return of the absentee landlord. Yes. this this and and i think people in ireland and renters obviously and people who are stuck living at home but renters in particular there's something still deep in our psyche that says thinks back to the famine and everybody who went to school in ireland remembers that image

of detached cottage yeah with the battering ram and the family sitting outside it and that sense that everybody knows we know what mass evictions are we know what it's like for people not to have their own home this country was built on the expropriation that not the exposure should i say the exclusion of people who couldn't afford a home and so evictions are very very powerful the idea of people having their own home is is part of like this country built people's homes that's what it did that's what the state was built on yeah and these homes in in berlin aren't their ex-council flats so these are flats that were at one point built by the state and then somehow ended up into the hands of private ownership and were then exploited by these vulture funds yeah it's a complicated enough story and

i suppose the important thing for listeners for people to understand is that the big global vulture funds and some of them are german owned they're not just foreign but they bought a lot of these units as you said back off the state 10 15 20 years ago when these council houses were privatized and what they've essentially done is massively increased the rent so rents have increased by around 85 percent in the last 10 years and it's worth mentioning too that in in berlin in particular i i think isn't it like 70 percent of people rent like germany has had a culture of renting for quite some time yeah all because rent has always been pretty decent in germany and people haven't felt the need for home ownership exactly yeah so renting has been is is people and i you know think of it that's

where their forever home is they They have secure lifetime tenancies. They had, up until the last decade, generally considered affordable rents. You're right. I think it's even close to 80% of people in Berlin rent. So, you know, overwhelming majority of people. And what happened was that as these corporate landlords, if we call them, or investor funds took over more and more of the properties they own you know close to half a million properties yeah one company alone

owns close to half a million properties like that's a massive number i said they they've jacked up the rents and they've evicted people and so what's happened over the last couple of years is that the tenants in berlin have got organized so they've started or they had protests they demanded a freeze on rents and we had two years ago the local council in berlin implemented a five-year freeze on rents but what happened was the national or what's called federal uh court of of Germany overruled that and said that that was unconstitutional. So the tenants then and renters in Berlin in response organized this referendum. Because a referendum, for people who don't know, is when people vote to change something in a constitution.

Isn't that right? Yeah, exactly. And we think everybody knows the marriage equality referendum. Everybody knows, you know, the repeal referendum. Well, if you're from Ireland, obviously, internationally, they wouldn't have the same understanding, but exactly that. A referendum is where the people vote on a law

or a change in the constitution. It doesn't have to be just the constitution. It can be they vote in favor of the government or a local government to implement a law or do something so it's essentially a popular democracy um action where people have to vote on an issue rather than just voting for let's say a politician um and so in this referendum the berliners went out and organized it and and the the tenants unions their campaigns they went out and organized it. And the tenants' unions, their campaigns, they went out, you know, weekend after weekend, day after day, they had to organize, I think, close to 200,000 signatures to get the referendum held. They went and did it. They organized it. Then they got the

referendum held. Then they had to campaign for the majority of people to support it. And they got it. And that was, you know, a a huge it's well over 55 i think it's close to 56 percent of berliners voted for this and i think it's a real as i said i think for for people across the world it's a beacon of hope that people who feel so beaten down by rents by the lack of affordable housing the lack of hope to see the people in berlin stand up go organize this get it it's just it's it's incredible it's inspiring it's hopeful now i saw a few a few naysayers online said that even though they voted for this that there's still a lot of hoops to go through before it actually goes into effect is that correct yeah that is correct and that's why you know it's hopeful it's great but yeah there's

more steps to go on it and it's it is not a a referendum is not binding so that means that the government local government doesn't have to implement it straight away it's like a recommendation okay so it's not legally binding and even if the local government in berlin says okay we're going to implement this the national government can come in and say well that's it can be challenged under the constitution that it's unconstitutional but for the people and the renters of berlin it's massive to get this because they what they're saying very clearly is okay OK, if you don't do this, we're going to keep pushing for more. And I think that's the real sign of hope, because if you look at what's happening at the moment in Ireland, I know, you know, getting feedback like renters are they're despairing, they're frustrated, they're talking about emigrating. sparing they're frustrated they're talking about emigrating yeah and i think that we need something like that here we need something that could you know garner people's sense of anger frustration

and demand for homes rather than because what's happening here i was looking at the figures there we have about 15 000 um of our homes in this country are now owned by corporate landlords yeah like that's a lot of homes that's a lot of homes yeah and it's increasing year by year they're buying up most of the apartments and they're outbidding the humans that are left that can possibly afford a house are often being outbid by giant faceless piles of cash that's what these investment funds are exactly and it's fascinating that the very funds in germany that the residents there are voting for their local state to buy the units off them are also those very same institutional funds are here in ireland as well yeah you know the german funds are here and you know if we look

at one like i just if you don't mind me talking about this rory recently uh you were so uh uh an investment fund is is has threatened you with legal action because you use the word vulture can you talk about that i can yeah um i call themz, the non-vulture fund now. Okay. Or Heinz, not the vulture fund, Heinz. Yes, I tweeted that. I can't believe it's not a vulture fund. Exactly.

I cannot believe it. It squawks. It flaps. It eats carcasses, but it's not a vulture fund. Yeah. It's a crow. Might have been a crow. Not too sure. That's what it is.

I'd say it was a crow. All right. One of those ravens, you know, a nasty raven. Yeah. Yeah. Poking the eyes out of dead calves. So who is this fund? Who is this fund?

And what are they doing in Ireland? And why are you such a threat to them? Yeah. So Heinz are a 161 billion international global real estate fund who have property all over the world they consider themselves one of the the big global real estate funds they are one of them um but they have come into ireland since the crash as we talked about the last day one of these funds they bought up land uh they've bought up um and and they've developed some units they're now developing what are called which have actually been banned in Ireland,

but they're the co-living development. Yes. They're developing a massive, a tenement, a modern day tenement. Absolutely. A modern day tenement, but they're,

they've just put in a proposal for a 1,600 apartments, 1,600 in Drumcondra. And not one of them will be available for sale. Yes. 70% of them will either be studio or one bed apartments. And I tweeted out saying, you know, this is the dystopian future that we face. You know, generation rent won't be able to buy a home. They won't be able to live in a decent standard home.

And this is what vulture funds like Heinz are doing. And subsequent to that, about a week or two later, I got an email from Heinz saying that I was essentially libeling them by calling them a vulture fund. And so I was a bit kind of shocked by that and a bit taken aback. And I was like, is this serious? And my immediate reaction was to delete the tweet yeah which i did because i was like thinking my kids thinking about you know i can't go take on a vulture fund i don't have the

money and resources to do that i um and looking back in it now i'm thinking oh maybe i should have left it there and the point i think as well though is that they are as i said developing these built rent apartments you know huge expense as i said they're these built-to-rent apartments, you know, huge expense. As I said, they're not homes for people. And I think we've a right to challenge that and question that. I think what was shocking for me that a multi-billion investor fund would individually target, you know, an academic who's, you know, making a bit of noise on Twitter.

Doing your job. Your job is social policy your job is to investigate and critique exactly this but i was just kind of going they must be rattled they must feel yeah there's there's a tide turning in this country and i think there is that people are going hang on a minute this is not the future we want these are not the homes we want like there's another development i was looking at on on griffith avenue um u.s property giant gray star have bought 385 apartments which are being built um 385 all again all built to rent not one of them will be for sale do you know

what the one bed apartment is going to be rented out at? Go on. 1,900 for a one bed apartment. Yeah, it's absurd. It's obscene. It's absolutely obscene. And this is our future. This is your future. Unless we do something about it. Like who's even renting those?

I mean, I heard, I don't know whether this is true or not now, but I heard that a lot of these really expensive renting properties in Dublin are actually rented out by the multinational headquarters of tech companies that are in Dublin because these are the people who can afford them. Yeah, I think that's happening. And what is also happening is they're leaving them vacant. Yes. We know that there's one development and you can see that

you go around grand canal dock and you know well there's apartments there's no one living in there no and that's what they do and so this argument by certain economists that oh we need these built rent developments because they'll you know add a supply which will at some point magically bring down rents when going no no, that doesn't work because these guys can allow the properties lie vacant because they don't want to have to rent them out at lower rents,

which would reduce the rents. So that's what they can do because they're assets. And it's a form of hoarding, essentially. Absolutely. These are commodities to them. And this is what the importance of the Berlin referendum is.

It's challenging the idea and not just the idea, but this wave of investment funds that want property homes to be a commodity. That's what they want. And where it ends up is where Berlin is about 15, 10, 15 years ahead of us, where they've reached this point where people can't get any affordable homes because the investment funds have essentially taken over the entire market yeah that's that's where we're heading to in ireland but we can learn from them and stop stop it now and so as you said there rory that they use tenants unions were a part of it

so just for people in ireland to wonder right how do we do this? How do we have a referendum where we basically make, what is it, to make housing a right in Ireland, to make a home a right, a part of the constitution, and also to not be exploited by investment funds? Would you recommend people join in like a union like CATU? Yeah, absolutely. I think CATu is it's a new tenant community trade union been set up here um community sorry uh tenants union should i say sorry community action tenants union yeah yes exactly and they are you know renters community local community activists who are trying to support people who are being evicted there i think that's the thing that's if we learn from Berlin, tenants got organized,

they campaigned, they made noise about it. And if we think about it, that's what was happening before COVID in Ireland. We had the Take Back the City movement, occupying the Mount Joyce Square. We had big housing protests. We had protests against evictions of people. That movement was growing.

The election in 2020, very clearly, if you look at the polls, show young people voted on housing. And I think that I was looking at the figures there. When you look for hope, the amount of people renting, there's about three quarters of a million people now renting in Ireland. That's a lot of people, right? So now lots of them are children. There's also, as I've given, i think i gave this figure the last day 450 000 adults living at home with their parents wow like that's a shocking number but then i looked how many votes that's

five galways five god how many votes did finna fall get in the last election they got 480 000 there's more renters than yeah votes finna fall got in the last election so my thing is that why don't renters and the generation locked out go register to vote and start creating themselves as a political block a voting block so when the next election comes there's more people who are either renters or who are living at home with their parents because they can't afford a home than who voted for this government so they could be a real influencer and i was thinking um i think the referendum on the right to housing is fundamental because i think that can unlock so much how do we get that how do you go to someone like mihal martin or le Leo Radker and go lads we want a referendum on

housing because I'd imagine parties like Fianna Gael and Fianna Fáil are going to have huge resistance to something like that we have to people have to do what marriage equality and repeal did the people essentially create the public pressure that makes it so that politicians have to do it so it becomes that when every person they talk to every person they hear from is saying why haven't you why haven't you held that referendum yet what's the story with the right to housing referendum it's a bit mad that you haven't done that and they're actually the mad thing is they committed to it the program from government has a commitment to a referendum on housing the new housing for

all plan has a commitment to referendum on housing so i think i was thinking a little exercise your listeners might do if you're up for it if they're up for it is why not write to their local td write to their t-shock send them an email i was thinking they could uh put a headline like um put something like where are our homes we want to stay and live here and not to be forced to emigrate the housing crisis is a crisis of our generation our present and our future why can't renters and those adults stuck at home have a forever home of their own our housing is surely more important than investors in the market so will you hold the referendum you promised to insert the right to housing in our constitution? We believe this is essential to enact laws to make housing a home for all.

Will you freeze rents and ban evictions from the private rental sector for five years to give us a bit of breathing space to live for a few years? If not, why not? There are almost a million of us. We're going to be deciding how we will vote in 2024 on the basis of housing but why so if they put this in this this new housing for all plan right that the government come out with like what are they just procrastinating on the referendum thing then what do they want do they want to knock it on to the next government what's the deal yeah i think they do like it looks like lip service like that that entire because i read your critique of the housing for all plan and your your overall critique is

that this this is this is for him this benefits investors it doesn't benefit people who want to own a home yeah or rent an affordable one or a secure one yeah when i went through the housing for all plan which was the government's latest plan i was actually disappointed and maybe i was naive to think expect anything different but i did actually expect something different because they clearly realize that there is a massive crisis out there but what they don't seem to be prepared to do is tackle the big interests like are our government afraid of investment funds are our government coerced by investment funds are scared to annoy them like what's going on like what why where do what like

investment funds don't even create jobs like it's not like they're saying oh no it's some tech company that wants a headquarters and it's going to create jobs the it's not like they're saying oh no it's some tech company that wants a headquarters and it's going to create jobs the investment funds don't even create jobs why are they licking their arses because essentially the state stopped building housing in this country we used to build council housing we used to build affordable housing and they essentially handed housing over to the market and they then handed it over to the market and they then handed it over to investment funds so the in the government's head the only way they're going to get a supply of housing is if they entice the investment funds so it's like they've hitched

their wagon to them so on the one hand because they're not willing and i think it's ideological and we've talked about this the last time yeah they're not willing for the state to go out and build build affordable housing because they're scared shitless that if they did build affordable housing on scale affordable rental affordable purchase that if the state went and built this on a massive scale which they could do they could borrow and do it that it would lead to rents falling it would lead to house prices falling. It would lead to house prices falling. And their whole system. The banks. The idea is they think the people who vote for them. Who have the property.

That it will all just fall apart for them. They're not willing to really just go. Do you know what? This housing system is broken. And we need to do it differently. So fundamentally what you have a problem. Whereby our government's ideology. is to view people as commodities and that of that a human being simply to live that that is something that should be profited off yeah and i think they don't understand

the importance of housing in people's lives i think they need to go back and read maslow's hierarchy of needs you know at the bottom, the most fundamental requirement is shelter. Yeah. And if you add to that, I was actually looking at it today, teaching my students in social policy today about it. And I went through each of the layers of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And you can go through each one, self-esteem, sense of belonging, belonging safety housing impacts on all of them people don't feel people are feel insecure in their selves in their minds and their bodies because they don't know are they going to be living this home in a month in two months time in three months time

and i think what's happened is government and politicians have have no sense of that they have no sense that actually they just i think they live in a bubble they live in a world where people buy their home can afford it no concept of people renting what it means the insecurity of it the impact on it and i think that what we need to relearn and understand is if you don't have a home you have nothing that it's so absolutely fundamental you can't can't meet your other needs you don't sure look i don't i don't have to look very far like people i know they're not pursuing their passions they're not pursuing their hobbies because to do so would mean free time and that free time is taken up by a second job or taken up where trying to pay that rent they're not thinking about retirement they're not thinking about anything like that some people aren't even thinking about

children because they can't afford them yeah and then the most viable option is i either do this just to pay the rent because i'm certainly not not going to save for a mortgage or i emigrate like one thing that saddened me a bit today when i saw this berlin news was lots of people were very inspired by it and then other people were like brilliant better emigrate to berlin yeah yeah do you know what i mean as the first response better emigrate to berlin and that is one of the saddest things that's very irish it is it is very irish and historically that's what we've done we've left the country rather than changing it i appeal to people stay and change this country you know we can we can do it because my god there's such tragedy in emigration there is such sadness in it and i know my brother lives

in australia i think of my children you know having to leave this country because they can't get an affordable home i'm messaged every day by people saying i'm not living in dublin anymore i can't live here people who work with around you know different people doing amazing work amazing things artists can't stay here anymore as soon as you know in the next couple of months i'm gone i'm out of here and one of the sad things as well about immigration rory again again from my personal experience so like i would have gotten in i i came into adulthood uh around the last recession which meant that about 50% of the people I would have grown up with are gone like they've left the country and a very sad thing I started to notice

when I was about 28 or 29 is every year at Christmas or every two years your buddies come back from Australia or from America or Canada and a sad thing happens whereby in order for them to move and to establish themselves in a new community and new friends new workplace in australia or whatever they lose a part of the personality they had at home until eventually some of your friends you meet them and they're just not that person anymore that you knew the environment they've inserted themselves into is so different they're happy they're just not that person anymore that you knew. The environment they've inserted themselves into is so different. They're happy. They're incredibly happy.

And they're down in Australia. But it's like, that's not my pal anymore. He's saying good day. They change. They go through their life. They have their kids there. But then I have grief. I have a strange grief then because it's like, yeah, I'm grieving because this person is now a new person and I don't know, I'm not relating to them the way I used to.

And that's really sad. So I'm grieving for the person that was there. And it's very strange. It is strange. And it is. You're right. It's sad. And it is a grief.

It is a loss of that person that you knew. It's a loss of the relationships it's a loss of you know people's children their sons their daughters their grandchildren they don't get to see them and it frightens me when i look back at the crash in the recession i was always struck by michael noonan when he said about you know all my i think he talked about his children emigrating as well and sure they can go off and do whatever and i went that lad is very fucking disconnected if he can just say you know ah it's you know people young people can go away and you just go there's a lot of pain and suffering and the problem is and it you know fair

play to you in term you know you highlight mental health you talk about emotions openly you talk about grief i think part of the problem in this country is we haven't done that and so therefore we accept things we accept that cost of generate of emigration we accept the loss and i my hope is that we have a generation now who won't just shut off from that pain and hopefully they've told their parents and their parents aren't as close as they used to be and they go,

why should we put ourselves through all this suffering for fucking investment funds and developers? Why should they dictate? Jesus Christ. Why should they dictate our country and how it's a faceless pile of cash like an investment fund is a faceless pile of cash that's all it is it's a lump of money but why are we like why just like there's so much we could do there's so much that could be done right now and you know i talked about it the last day like we have massive land banks you know owned by local authorities

they could be building on it we have money we could borrow to build you know we have nama sitting there with land we could put a vacant tax in place we could set cooper go up cooperatives and they could build and engage communities in it there's loads that could be done and yet it is i think that that um conservatism the the worship of the market they've been captured by investors they're not willing to throw it all it has to be fear as well rory they're simply afraid i don't want to what your problem if i was uh i imagine they're thinking what you're proposing is too radical rory and i if i i can't take that risk in case it fails and then me and my party is fucked and i would say the risk that they are playing in the game they're playing now is that they are robbing another generation of its future

and that is what's happening that they are removing the possibility from a future generation and generation after that of having affordable homes unless of course we go in 10 years time and have a referendum to buy back all the houses like they've done in berlin off the investment funds but we can avoid that we don't have to go there. We can still turn this around. One thing I want to chat to you about, Rory, right before we go, CETA, C-E-T-A, is a possible threat to us standing up to investment funds. Is that correct?

And can you explain it a bit yeah so cita is the the um eu canada comprehensive economic and trade agreement some people might have heard of it some people mightn't but actually there's a lot of people who've been quite animated about it and we had one before what was it nafta what was the one there yes and trump didn't sign up ironically donald trump was the one who saved the world from it. The North American Free Trade Agreement. Actually, no, I'm wrong. I'm talking about the TTIP, which was similar.

What it does is it allows corporations to sue countries. Yeah. And these whole free trade agreements, you know, they go back 20, 30 years. free trade agreements, you know, they go back 20, 30 years. They're about essentially removing what they call the barriers of trade between countries. But when you look at the fine detail of the agreements, what they're actually about is corporations trying to access markets in different countries and in particular, access things like health services access housing and what often you see in these free trade agreements is that things like workers protections

or things like investment in public services yeah are considered by the corporations as a threat to their investments and therefore exactly as you said if for, for example, a country like Ireland, in this case of the CETA trade agreement, decides that we want to do what Berlin is doing and buy back or expropriate or take off units off a real estate investment trust, or we want to put a rent freeze in place, or we want to put a five-year ban on evictions in place, that the real estate fund, investment fund, could take Ireland to what's set up as part of these agreements, which is called an investor court system. Yeah. It's a place where the companies can take a country to court. And it happened in 2006.

The huge tobacco company, Philip Morris, sued Uruguay because they brought in anti-smoking laws. And I think that that's a really good example of where this goes to. And it is very worrying. Because then if we're talking now about like you and i are saying jesus wouldn't be great if we got a referendum like berlin but as i understand this if cita gets passed then if the irish people were to have a referendum and to say we want rent controls or we don't want vulture funds then those same investment funds would be it would be okay for them to try and sue ireland exactly yeah like it seems other madness that is madness yeah it's

like it seems like going why would you do that and another thing about these things rory i mentioned earlier the ttip transatlantic trade investment partnership now that one never went ahead because of trump thankfully but someone who was hugely critical of it was the mep luke ming flanagan um not an mep that's yeah mep luke's an mep isn't he he is indeed yep and he was so he was in the european parliament and he was critical of the ttip so he as an mep was like all right i want to see let me at least see the agreement before it passes because I have a responsibility to my constituents. And it was impossible for him to actually read it.

He had to be put into a private room. He wasn't allowed to take photocopies. He was permitted to bring in a pencil and a paper, and that was it. So in order for him to correctly scrutinize this massive document that had to do with legislation around the environment, around food, they basically made it incredibly restrictive for an MEP to critique it and go back to his constituents and say, this might be a bad thing. it's a reduction in our democracy. Like it's an attack on our democracy. And it has a particular relevance to Ireland because this one is the EU-Canada trade agreement.

And why this is really relevant is because our largest private landlord now is called the Irish Real Estate Investment Trust, called IREZ. They own about 4,000 units in Ireland now. They're only set up since 2014. Who owns them is a Canadian real estate investment trust called CapReit.

So you could absolutely see this directly if we decided we're going to put a rent freeze, not just a rent cap. Or as I said, this ban on evictions. IREZ REIT, because they're owned by a Canadian company, could say, well, actually, we're, you know, this interferes with our ability to deliver our services here. So we want to take Ireland to the investor court and Ireland could be found against. Like, it's absolutely ludicrous and didn't justin trudeau the leader of canada recently try and say that he doesn't want investment funds in canada yeah which is really interesting and then i think it's it's to me

that's a a sign that i think the tide is turning that governments are realizing because they've left it go so far that these investment funds are taking over housing making it unaffordable locking people out of homes he felt the pressure because he they just had a a national election in canada and he was losing in the election and he was really worried about getting re-elected and he came out literally days before the election was due to be held. And he said, I'm going to stop. He's going to put in place a two-year ban on foreign purchase of property in Canada. Because they are having a similar housing crisis than we're having. Because they also have investment funds playing a huge role in their housing system as well.

And I think, you know, if we look at it canada's talking about doing it you know new zealand has a ban in place on foreign purchase of property you know why don't we do it here why are we doing the complete opposite here but what then stops an investment fund just starting up an irish shell company and it's like all right you can't have foreign investment uh our new name is is uh paddy vulture absolutely you could and that's like all right you can't have foreign investment uh our new name is is paddy vulture absolutely you could and that's where yeah you know you're right to make that point it shouldn't just be the foreign investment funds it should be actually a ban on investment funds purchasing homes and in particular something that we looked for earlier this year was the

for example this the banning or the stopping of the this bill to rent phenomenon where everything is for rent and there's nothing to buy for a home um and and the government didn't do that they didn't put in place they put in place a stamp duty measure that really makes no impact but they should put in place some mechanism where a certain percentage of homes in every development have to be available for people who want to buy a home and i think that's the sort of measures that could make housing affordable in this country you know and that's what we need like what are we doing why why are we allowing ourselves go down this dystopian path of locking our future generations, of locking people into housing stress, the mental health.

I think the reason is, Rory, I think it's just because most people on the street don't really know. This stuff is deliberately complicated. It's deliberately inaccessible. I think the fact that the investment fund that wanted to take legal action against you because you called it a vulture fund that exposes it right there what does the word vulture fund do it takes a concept which is very deliberately obfuscate and exclusionary and complicated it takes this concept and now all of a sudden it makes it

very understandable and very accessible to everybody. People think vultures. Vultures? That's who's going to circle my corpse when I'm dead. Vultures? Them big, lanky, smelly cunts on nature documentaries with their long, bloody necks

shoved into the rectum of a springbok now i'm cautious i don't like the sound of these vulture funds i can understand this it's like if you think back to the time of the protestant reformation when the protestant reformation happened and martin luther was like i'm starting this new thing i don't like the catholic church one of the things martin luther said was i think the bible should be available to people in the language that they speak not just latin and the catholic church went apeshit you can't tell him what's actually in it yeah no then we lose power so i always take it back to altuser and the ideological state apparatus, which is maintaining power by not democratizing information.

So the average person on the street, if you say investment fund, these huge investments, they don't really, it's a lot of information. But then you say vulture fund and you start to think those horrible birds that hang around death. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's the democratization of information. No, I think you're absolutely right. And that's what I'm trying to do in all the stuff I'm writing at the moment and trying to put out there is to communicate this stuff in language and ideas and stories and ways that people can understand. ideas and stories and ways that people can understand because housing in particular is often just talked about in statistics you know in units it's complicated and you're absolutely

right there's no effort made for people to actually explain it because they don't want them to understand it they don't want them to understand that there's an alternative way of doing it and it's really important i think as, that it's not just about the investment funds. It's also about our government and what our government could be doing and our state and our local authorities. It could be building homes. It could be doing that.

Like, we did it in the past. I think that's the other powerful... But then, when you say to one... If you say to either someone from Fianna Fáil or Fianna Gael and you say to them, build homes, what they always turn around with is we've done that in the past and you've seen the huge problems it created. We had to knock the Ballymun Towers is what they'll say. It didn't work. It failed. And what I would say is that just because, well, first of all, it didn't fail.

There was loads of examples up and down this country of council estates that people that functioned absolutely, you know, in ideal ways. People grew up in them. People were proud of them. People grew up in Ballymun absolutely proud. If you go up and actually talk to them and learn about the history there was a massive community there absolutely massive it wasn't the social the building of social housing that led to the problems in ballymun it was inequalities it was the drugs epidemic it was you know exclusion it wasn't the fact that they were living in social housing caused the problem and that again is you know that's about ideology because it goes back to, again,

what was Margaret Thatcher about? What is neoliberalism about? It's about undermining the social, about undermining the collective. And it was all about the individual. How do we marketize, privatize everything? And so they went after social housing ideologically. They didn't want it. They didn't want the state to be doing it.

And if you look at it, so even the stories they create about bali mon this idea that bali mon was a failure bali mon wasn't a failure bali mon provided generations of people with good quality homes what happens is what happened was the irish state stopped maintaining the housing they stopped putting money into social housing in the 1980s and 1990s i remember i visited those estates in the 1990s i saw them i went i walked around them and i could see the deprivation but what i could really see was the physical deprivation and that means the buildings that had been let run down by the council because at that same time they were moving to the market

ideology the irish state decided that point we no longer want to do social housing so if you don't want to do social housing anymore of course it's going to fail of course it's not going to work you look at austria you look at vienna and lots of people have probably seen that video circulating of the beautiful apartments public housing with lovely plants lying you know going down at these green apartments with swimming pools in their complexes with community spaces that's what you can do if your government wants to who wants to do it and is willing to do it and is not going to neglect it and then yeah it's like they neglected it and but then you and then blame it on the people exactly which i always i associate that with Reaganism and Thatcherism,

which is to demonize a class of people and say, the poverty that you are in or deprivation that you're in, that is your fault. That's a moral failing. You're not working hard enough. You don't get up in the morning and work, as Fianna Gael liked to say. Exactly. And the thing in reality is now,

the people who are getting up to work are getting exactly and the thing in reality is now the people who get are getting up to work are getting up and waking up in homeless hostels yeah going to work or paying are paying rent to a vulture fund or paying rent to a vulture fund or living in a shed and i think that the change that's needed is we have to go that the state builds housing not just social housing but it does build affordable housing for people to buy. It builds affordable housing. This idea of the cost rental, which we talked about the last time as well, which is like they do in Vienna and Austria, rental housing that's secure,

that's affordable, that's available for anyone. And when we look at Berlin and what they're doing, essentially that's what they're doing. They're going to buy those units back off the corporates landlords and rent them out to people on any income and that's what we should be doing here and you go we look like we deliver health like we give people health care not on the basis of whether they can afford to buy it or not people don't rock up we're not like America where if you fall out of the if you get knocked down the ambulance turns up and goes have you got health insurance or not and people don't ring the ambulance in America

they don't because calling the ambulance is 10 grand in America you can turn up to an A&E here and you will get with delays but you will get a service and as well like the maternity system isn't perfect but if someone has a child

in this country compared to other places you're not it's it's paid for by the state absolutely it's pretty much 100 you know public there is a certain amount of private there but you know everybody can access maternity care yeah our education system is the same primary school education everybody gets access to it everybody gets access to secondary education health education absolutely fundamental but housing is even more fundamental as we talked earlier what what good what good is a free education to a child if that child then has to return to a hotel to live in where they can't even do their study or have a quality of life exactly like what how can a child avail of that education how can they

study how can they study for a leave insert in a in a hotel room or in a in a family hub and even more so i have students who are saying that they are worried about doing their final year thesis because they don't know if they're going to be evicted by the landlord midway through doing their thesis you know you have people hundreds of thousands of children hundreds of thousands of children live with their families in the private rental sector their families live in a state of not knowing can is the child going to be still here in two two months time three months time six months time there's no stability they can't create community they can't have security do you feel rory that this this plan that they the houses for all plan i just get the feeling if i challenge if i was to challenge uh a politician who came to my door

and say i'm worried about this i'm worried like i saw a photograph last week that broke my heart of a girl of about seven it was just the back of her head which was seven years of age eating soup outside the gpo that was being provided for provided for her by by a charity and if i say this to a politician they'll just go no we've got this wonderful plan now called homes for all or houses for all yeah and that's what they'll say like i needed to read your assessment of it in order for me to go right well no rory knows his shit and he's saying that this thing doesn't work but if i wasn't fully informed around that area i might look at that plan and go that seems all right seems like they're doing something about this wow but they're not this it's it's tinkering on the edges and that's what people need to understand this is only tinkering it's not making an overhaul and i and the example of the rents is a really

good example they stood up at the launch of that document and said oh we've a rent freeze in place now rents are frozen and then it comes turns out that what they did was they linked rents to inflation which is now at three percent pretty much close to the four percent which was the cap there but there's no rent freeze in place there's a very simple example another one is the security for tenants where is the security of tenants where is the security for tenants there's none there's talk about doing it at some point in the future where is the right to housing referendum you know where has it actually been held where are the 15 000 you know affordable homes that should be built by the state every year

they're not there so there are four really quick examples there's no vacant and it's it's one one thing there rory just one thing i whenever so whenever i'm wary of we'll say government promises the one thing i always bring myself back to and how clever they are about it is in about 2017 uh the government said we are going to plant 1 million trees for the environment and i saw the headline and went wow that looks brilliant isn't that amazing that our government is going to plant 1 million trees and i felt really good and then someone critiqued it and says they are planting 1 million trees but those trees are actually for the logging industry

so they're actually going to hurt the environment because they're not native trees and they're just for logging but technically the government's not lying it's like yeah they are planting one million trees but then you go beyond it and it's like you snaky boys sneaky but the homes for all plan sound it sounds like that at first glance it's enough to satiate the average person to think oh good because i think i think people don't want to be worrying about this shit i want to look at netflix like i want to look at netflix and get on with my life i don't want to be stressed out about the government plan i want them to be looking after this shit if they give me a say here's a new document called house homes for all i want most people just want to go brilliant great the adults have it sorted what's on netflix do you know what i mean yeah instead of having to go

what are they really saying what's actually here when you investigate this yeah and i think what people have to realize is that unfortunately the adults at the moment don't have your best interests at heart no and you have to unfortunately get off the couch and if you want it to be different you have to do something yourself yeah and that's where which is a kick in the balls it is are you saying they need a kick in the balls or no but it's just again oh it's a kick in the point of a government is that it would the average citizen wants to go can i worry about my life yeah because i want to believe that you're in power and we voted you in you have this shit sorted no one wants to go to sleep at night thinking oh my god those people that are in power are actually acting against my interests yeah fuck it's a lot of stress it is a lot of stress but then when you

look at the stress people are in already over the rents yeah over their future as you talked about like people putting off having kids like i can't think of anything more horrific you know than that and that their life choice that then it happens you know they put it off they put it off and the life choice is then essentially taken away from them by a lack of affordable housing like yeah like this is just this is stealing people's lives from them and you know we need to talk about this and that's's lives from them. And, you know, we need to talk about this. And that's why when people say, I just, you know, housing for all sounds great. Unfortunately, it's not.

And that's why it's so important that we can have this conversation, that you have me on to have this conversation. And I think I feel it's a bit of the impact I'm having in trying to actually say, because will go oh my god how are we back here again how are we back here with house prices through the roof again you know we're still in this crisis a decade down like in 10 years time there is absolutely no reason why we wouldn't still be in the

midst of a housing crisis if nothing is done and so that's why we're and a worse one so we do have to learn what it is worse, Rory, because I tell you what, five years ago, people were worried about not being able to get a home because the houses were too expensive. Now they're worried about not being able to get a home because the house is too expensive because they're being bought by investment funds. Yeah, that's a different one like when when you're competing with someone a human being who's wealthier than you at least you can put a picture on that but when when you're when you're competing against a giant investment fund now there's a futility to it then you give up there is and i

really hope people don't give up because you know this is the future of our country it housing is the biggest social issue that is going to determine how this country develops in the coming and it's not just ireland this is this is a global thing these investment funds are are doing this in in all you know in every country i can see i mean where is it not happening yeah and that's what happened in china yeah obviously we're seeing a crash happening there with their with their big state firm um evergrande but it is happening across the world and i said these are global funds this is their strategy and if we if people don't wake up and step up and try and do something and people are suffering i know they are as i said i talk to them every day people are been demoralized been beaten down by the housing crisis but i think

there is what berlin showed was that there is a possibility in people coming together and making that change that simple idea of people power and i always think of nelson mandela's famous phrase when he said it seems impossible until it's done and for people i think that's part of it it seems impossible now but it will be unless people do it and they can do it and i think that berlin is that little beacon of hope that's what i love about the berlin thing is like there it is being done there it is being done so what did they do so before we sign off rory um, so one thing you said is that, first of all, people should become informed and write to their TDs. Secondly, it's a good idea to join a union, like a tenants union, so that we can organize. So you've actually got a collective together to demand a referendum.

Then one last thing. How do we stop c to happen i think that again we have to put the pressure on in that people have to take action in the way that they can if we look at how for example the students you know the students were protesting this week outside the doll they raised their voice about and was this because like for so for the first time in my memory we're seeing a situation where students in in cork galway and and limerick and dublin can't get anywhere to live there and and i'm also seeing for the first time ever i'm seeing hotels offering long-term student rates which is really fucked up and i knew this was a bit of an issue but i've never seen it this big so students around ireland now they don't have accommodation it doesn't exist no and it actually connects

directly to our conversation because investment funds like heinz and others have built thousands of student accommodation over the last couple of years. But what they did was they have now started letting it out to tourists. Oh, for fuck's sake. It's just like... And it just shows... As short-term lettings, like as Airbnbs or something?

As Airbnbs. And they applied to the local authorities. So the fucking investment funds are working with airbnb yep they are letting it out as short-term tourist lets and they worse the planning permission they were given planning permission to do it they applied for a change of use and people were highlighting this and i was highlighting this and you're going around a thousand units that could have students in them appear to now have tourists in them and you're going i'd like this is just but it shows what point does it implode because why

would a tourist want to come to galway and just look at a bunch of angry students well when when the uh investment fund has emptied out the block of any students and it's all just other tourists that's how they how they do it but it shows that these well if there's one thing tourists don't like it's other tourists well tourists hate going somewhere and then seeing a bunch of other tourists and then they go on to tripadvisor and complain about all the tourists while being a tourist i don't think the investment funds care at all about the complaints i think they just care about getting them in and uh and when tourists look at Galway and the prices of everywhere they'll they'll probably very happily take up some of these but to me it shows

these investment funds they're not here to provide housing affordable housing it's for them it's a commodity and they will turn it into whatever will make the money for them and that is the the real danger of it and you asked about CETA for me CETA it's the same as the housing thing people need to become active citizens like we get the country to a certain extent we get the country we get because we let people the politicians and government away with it and historically that's what we've done in this country but my real hope is that this generation they achieved marriage equality they achieved repeal they are a generation that's like doesn't take any bullshit they're open they're hopeful and they're the ones who will actually break the fucking historical conservatism in this country and say you know what we want to stay

here we're not just going to be kicked out and emigrated because of failure of our politicians and government we're going to stay and change it. And housing is fundamental for us. So we want that referendum and we're going to talk about it to everybody. And we're going to demand it. And we're going to email our politicians. And we're going to make noise about it. And we're going to trend it on Twitter.

And we're going to make... And protest. And protest. Because the one thing I've been thinking about there recently is COVID has given governments around the world a bit of a fucking upper hand there because no one could protest. Because the one thing I've been thinking about there recently is COVID has given governments around the world a bit of a fucking upper hand there because no one could protest. No one could really get out there and protest. It wasn't legal.

Yeah, it's true. COVID absolutely, you know, left people very disempowered in how they could engage and understand. And distracted. And fucking distracted. It was a a bloody pandemic like a global pandemic which was still you know reeling from and that's the other thing people are still reeling from that you know and and the housing thing it's sort of there but people are still in the post-covid sense of you know people are

feeling isolated you know how do you link up with people when you just have this you know anxiety about going out in the world when people are still trying to protect each other when people are still you know you know unemployed when people you know there's there's a huge covid recovery needed and i think the housing thing will fit in there and i think it's how we how we as a society come together again and how we, and I think particularly the generation rent and generation locked out, they understand what it means to value people and they put people first. And I think that's the biggest challenge

that the government doesn't get. The biggest challenge to them, the biggest thing is that this generation doesn't give a shit about investment funds or assets or commodities. They don't want to buy a property or two properties or three properties to rent them out as a home. What this generation wants is they just want a home and they want to be able to live. That's a good point.

Because that's the thing. One thing I'll say about younger people is like I would have grown up. So I would have grown up like I saw the celtic tiger when i was a child so i would have grown up with the idea that it's okay you want to own a house and then also if you get a second one to rent it that's okay too that were those were the values that i would have seen around me in the celtic tiger but then people now who are in their early 20s i don't i think i don't even think they want to own a home i think even just to rent like you had in berlin for years just simply don't exploit me yeah and i just want somewhere to live so so i want my home

to be a given and then i can focus on the things I'm passionate about. Whether I own it or not, I don't really give a shit so long as I'm not being exploited and that I have that sense of security because that's what Berlin was famous for. And Germany in general with all the people renting because I remember being younger, I always used to say to myself,

fuck me, those people in Germany renting, are they not scared? Are they not afraid? And it's no they're not they they know that there's always going to be affordable places to live so what's the point in owning something who wants that hassle and that's the problem with our rental sector here people don't have that security and the government could change that overnight they did during covid they put in place a ban on evictions yeah froze rents i go why don't you do do that for five years give people a bit of breathing space and if you look at the ideology the ideology is well we wouldn't want people getting lazy now and we wouldn't want that's

what it is we wouldn't want people getting lazy and we wouldn't want to upset the landlords yeah and we wouldn't want to upset the investors and we wouldn't want to upset who else we oh the banks that's who we don't want to upset but absolutely they they have a belief and there's that bullshit out there about the snowflake generation and that you know oh they're just you know they're more concerned with what yeah they're more that's a harsh it that's an easy way to get out of an argument that's all that is but i think this i think that's there as well there's that idea that um you know we worked hard to buy our house and buy our two houses and our three houses and why the hell can't you and you're going uh because you fucking bought them and now you're renting them and because all those all those those people who

would have been buying property during the celtic tiger they would have been insufferable cunts if they had social media like that's the whole thing snowflake generation it's like no the first generation whereby if you want to

complain about what's bothering you you can actually publish it widely but if imagine the state of Twitter in the Celtic Tiger but you know what

the snowflake generation it's the first generation that's properly in touch with its own emotions that can actually express its feelings that can express itself and where mental health isn't stigmatized exactly and that was the whole thing about that's why this i i have such faith in the generation that's coming that they it's the value shift i really believe that it's it's like um this idea of you know what's the common sense in society the common sense in government's head in the minister's head in is that like oh people want

to buy a property and you know they'll get on this property lather and then they might buy another one and the people who want that will put in the effort to save it and they can get that we'll help them out a bit and they'll get there the The rest of them, I'm not sure if they're renting, they're renting. They clearly aren't bothered about it. And they go, the value shift that's changed is that actually now most people want a home. They just want a home. And be that rented, as you said, or be that bought, it doesn't matter. But what it needs to be is it needs to be a decent quality home.

It needs to be of decent size. It needs to be lifetime secure. And that's where we're going. And has potential for community. Exactly. Absolutely. That you're embedded and you have that possibility to develop community. But I do think that if we look at how values have changed over time, that they are by people talking about them.

They're about people actually asserting those values so young people and generation locked out generation rent need to be proud and go this is the type of value system this is the type of country we want and we're not going to be ashamed and we're not going to let ourselves be blamed for this crisis that policy has created and the previous generations have created we actually want some different we see a housing completely differently and i think that's the shift that hopefully is coming thanks so much for that rory that's perfect thank you to rory thank you to you for listening i genuinely hope you came away from that feeling

invigorated and empowered and inspired by what the people in Berlin did. I hope you feel. That you have a new set of tools. Or a new set of options. I really enjoyed that chat. And it made me feel a little bit more optimistic. About the situation. That we could enact change around it. So.

I'm doing something different with the sign off this week. Usually I sign off straight away. And I say goodbye. Dog bless. Whatever. I'm going something different with the sign off this week. Usually I sign off straight away. And I say goodbye, dog bless, whatever. I'm going to do that. And then when that happens. There's a little advert plays at the end. They play the little end roll advert. This week I'm doing something different.

I have a new segment that I want to introduce. At the end of the podcast. Which I want to do every week. But I want to keep it optional for ye. I don't want it to be something, it mightn't interest everybody. So I'm going to put it after the end ad, and there'll be a new little segment that I'm going to do every week that I'm going to try out, because it's something I want to do personally, but not necessarily something everybody's going to be interested in.

So, dog bless if you're not interested. If you are interested, stick around for after the advert. Wear that cape, be that superhero. On Saturday, March 23rd, it's Marvel Superhero Night in Rock City. You dress up as your favorite superhero and watch the Toronto Rock drop the hammer

on the Halifax Thunderbirds at 7 p.m. at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. Punch your ticket to Marvel Superhero Night on Saturday, March 23rd at 7 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Okay, so this is what I'd like to do every week from now on. So you notice that I mention follow me on Twitch, twitch.tv forward slash the blind by podcast.

And if you've been listening to this podcast a while, you'll know what I do on Twitch once a week. So I'll try and make this as simple as possible. Twitch is a live streaming platform. Generally what people do on Twitch is a streamer might play a video game and a bunch of people watch and while the streamer is playing the video game they're talking over the video game, they're commenting about what's happening and they're speaking with the people who are watching and that's what twitch is and it's a lot of crack and people love it but then i had the idea of why don't i go on twitch and play video games but instead of commenting

i'm writing songs in the moment about what's happening in the video game. So live songwriting to a digital environment. I call it hyper real songwriting. And I do it as an art project. And I do it because often with any piece of art, whether it be a music or a book or a painting, what we tend to see is just the final piece. And we're never invited into the process that the artist went through making it so with this project people are part of the process it's no

longer about just the final piece you can tune into twitch and i'm playing a video game and i'm literally creating a song about what's happening in the video game in the moment off the top of my head I don't know what's going to happen next I don't know what the next line is I'm literally making things up as I go along and sharing the creative process

with whoever's watching and it's really exhilarating for me and it's a load of fun especially when I achieve creative flow and to be able to share that with other people and then to have the buzz. I also get to confront my own fear of failure because the biggest barrier that any artist has is the fear of failing. If you're scared of failing, you won't create. So you have to be not afraid of failure. You have to invite

failure into your process. You have to recognize that it's inevitable. So when I go on Twitch live and try to make songs up on the spot and to perform them with instruments and to produce them on the spot, there's no way I can be afraid of failure because I fail every two minutes. It's consistent failure and then the odd success. And that then helps my self-esteem as an artist. So each week I go on Twitch, play a video game, I have my guitar, my bass, my drums, keyboards, recording equipment and over about an hour and a half I might write maybe four songs, often three of them them are shit I don't like them but every week

generally there's one song that I write and I'm like I like that I'd go back and work on that I'm happy with that so that's what I'm gonna do at the end of the podcast from now on I think is I'm gonna take a song that I would have written live on Twitch to the events of a video game and then play it at the end of the podcast. Also, because these songs are written to a visual to the events of a video game, when I remove that visual and only present the audio of the song, the lyrics are now recontextualized

and achieve a new meaning. So the songs are actually quite different when you listen to them versus when you watch them with the video game playing to them. And I'm quite excited by that idea. This is also the reason I put it at the end of the fucking podcast because I'm aware not everyone's interested in this. This is quite a selfish project for me. This is something I want to do.

I fucking love doing this i love it's a privilege to be able to go on to twitch every single fucking week and to to write songs to write fucking songs for for people watching i love doing it um it's an absolute privilege and again thank you to my fucking patrons. Because it's only because of my patrons that I'm able to do this once a week. And to have the equipment to do it. And to embark on an artistic project that is in no way commercially successful at all. But I get to do it for the joy of creating. So thank you to everyone who supports me in doing that.

The song I'm going to play for you is called The Moon Made Me Shit My Pants and it's one of the first songs I wrote on Twitch to the events of a video game. And basically what happened is that I was walking around Red Dead Redemption 2 in a mining town, 1900s and I looked up into the sky in the video game

and I noticed that the moon was moving really fast across the sky because in the video game the daytimes are a lot shorter than they are in real life so the moon was visibly moving fast and then I thought to myself fuck it what would I do in real life if I saw the moon moving that fast and the reality is I'd probably do a shit into my pants because it'd be terrifying if I just saw the moon like moving that fast and the reality is I'd probably do a shit into my pants because it'd be terrifying if I just saw the moon like moving that fast so I just went with that thought I didn't critique it I didn't say it was good or bad I just went with it I played a few chords on the piano and wrote a fucking song to it in the moment and the whole point of creative flow. Is there's no critique.

I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm connecting with a feeling. And in that moment. The moon moving fast across the sky. The poetry of that image. Connected me with. Whatever it is inside myself. That's able to write songs that I like.

So here's the moon made me shit my pants. From Twitch. From my live twitch stream I'll catch you next week and also I'm I am happy with the song writing in this song but I'm not happy with the audio fidelity it was one of the first songs I made on twitch and I hadn't quite mastered my equipment yet. I think if I saw the moon like that in real life I'd do a shit in my pants Cause the moving moon That moving moon What a lovely lamp light, can I get some service? Can I speak to the manager?

Get some service. Can I speak to the manager? There was a moon outside and it made me shit my pants. The moon made me shit my pants. The moon made me shit my pants. Made me shit my pants The moon made me shit my pants The moon made me shit my pants You see the moon was moving really fast outside And it gave me a bit of a fright

And then the moon made me shit my pants And I'm wondering Are you selling trousers for a man with shitty pants? I've had a loner accident, a loner accident in my trousers The moon, can I have some new trousers, can I have yours Or are they dungarees? You see the moon let me shit my pants Can I have yours? Or are they dungarees? You see the moon made me shit my pants And I need new ones Is this a lot of baskets full of trousers?

Even a pair of galoshes or maybe some slacks Cause the moon made me shit my pants Even a pair of shorts, shorts or dungarees Shorts or dungarees Because the moon made me shit my pants. Now my pants are all shitty. And it all made me shit my pants. The moon. What are you looking at, man? You looking at my pants?

Are you judging my trousers, man? Are you judging my trousers? Don't be judging a man's pants unless you got shit in your pants from staring at the moving moon staring at the moving moon the moon was moving so fast and then i shat my pants oh you ought to be judging me i know by the way that you are rubbing rubbing your chin that you're judging me, man Oh, your hair doesn't look so hot That jacket isn't impressing me either And your jumper looks like it's got a small bit of shit on it Jumper's got a small bit of shit there just above the lapel

So don't you be judging me Don't you judge me cause the moon Made me shit my pants And you don't get to judge me for that Cause someday you'll look up at the moon And it'll make you shit your pants Yeah, you'll get it