The Blindboy Podcast - There's a housing protest in Dublin on the 26th of November

Episode Date: November 24, 2022

I chat with social policy lecturer Rory Hearne about the Raise The Roof housing protest and the movement towards change in Irelands housing climate Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

God bless you Drizzly Williams and welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. Welcome to a bonus episode of the Blind Boy Podcast. I put out a full podcast yesterday. It was a Jungian analysis of underpants via the writings of St. Augustine. But today you're getting a bonus podcast because there's a very important housing protest happening this Saturday, the 26th of November 2022, beginning at 1pm in Parnell Square in Dublin and it's called the Raise the Roof protest.

Housing, rent, homelessness, the mental health crisis which can't be separated from the housing crisis, investment funds, dereliction, illegal evictions, slum landlords, violent heavy-handed evictions being carried out by faceless private security in unmarked vans. Ireland is becoming an unlivable country and we need to exercise our democratic right to protest this. So this week I'm going to have a chat with Rory Hearn who has been a guest on this podcast twice before. He's a lecturer in Maynooth. He's an expert on public policy with over 20 years experience. And why I like chatting to Rory is because he's an authority on housing policy. And when the housing crisis seems very complicated and difficult to understand and obfuscated by inaccessible language

Rory is somebody who can democratize this information and he gives me a sense of hope so I'm going to chat to Rory now about this housing protest this Saturday the 26th of November, what it's about, what the aims are, why it's happening and why you should participate if you can. Also, I'm going to give Rory's book a little plug as a thank you for coming on to this podcast. Rory didn't ask me to plug his book, but I'm going to do it anyway. He's got a book out called Gaffs, where no one can get a house and what we can do about it, which is a bestseller. Check it out. And if you enjoy listening to this podcast, if it brings you entertainment, comfort, solace, joy, please consider supporting this podcast on Patreon, patreon.com forward slash

the blind boy podcast. If you can't afford that, don't worry. Listen to this podcast for free because the person who can afford it is paying for you to listen for free. Everyone gets a podcast. I get to earn a living. Here's my chat with Rory Hart. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise

for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. On April 5th, you must be very careful, Margaret. It's a girlallenge.ca. is the most terrifying. 666 is 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.

Okay, Rory. There's a very important housing protest happening on the 26th of November up in Dublin. And I'm bringing you on today because I want to ask you, why are people protesting? What are the aims of it? you why are people protesting what are the aims of it and why should people be protesting yeah thanks a million for having me back and I

just want to say there's been an incredible reaction um to the podcast that you had me on before and really hearing from people and so many people have contacted me so many of your listeners about the devastating impact of the housing crisis that it's having on a generation wow so you're getting personal stories personal stories people telling me you know i'm emigrating i'm leaving this country i love it but i see no future here because me and my partner can't get a home we're sick putting all our money into rent we just feel despair and we feel like our country has abandoned us and people talking about the mental health impact of it the sense of not seeing a future anxiety stress and i mean in my chat with um the last guest i had on was the president michael d higgins and what i spoke about with michael d higgins is i said that i i brought up a psychologist called victor frankl who's an existentialist psychologist. And I said, a quote from Frankl is,

a human being can put up with any how, so long as he has a why. And the thing with Ireland, people are worrying about rent, housing. They feel so crushed by it that they're not inspired to enjoy life and to achieve meaning. The new book that I've written since you had me on last, I came across a French philosopher called Gaston Bachelard, who wrote a book called Poetics of Space. And he talks amazing about the deep meaning of what home means to us. And he describes it as being the shelter of the imagination. It is our sanctuary. And it is the place where in which we can be. The reality is without a home of your own, you can't be. And we have one in 10 adults in this

country. One in 10 are adults living at home with their parents, basically being infantilized we have you know nurses guards teachers are key workers in this economy and society can't go to coppers get together meet up get a home and start their life they can go to coppers and meet up but that's where it ends and they just don't see a future and you ask why do we need to protest? We have to protest because this is an emergency. It's an existential crisis for this country. It raises the question of what is it all about if we can't provide people a home? What is the purpose of it all?

What's the name of the protest, Rory, and what is the outcome of this all? What's the name of the protest, Rory, and what is the outcome of this protest? What's the desired outcome? So it's been called by Raise the Roof, which is a broad coalition, like an alliance of different groups who've come together. And it's a bit like, people will think back to the marriage equality referendums and the repeal, the eighth referendums, and they'll remember the campaigns like Together for Yes, which were all different groups who came together. And people put aside different differences and, you know, disagreements they'd have over things. And they said, we need to work together towards a common cause. And it's the same idea in this campaign so there's the trade unions all the trade unions are there which is great and all the opposition

parties are there the people like the national women's council of ireland the ngos who are working on homelessness focus ireland threshold and they're all there. They have all come together to say, we need to say enough that something has to change radically. And the analysis that I've provided for quite a while is that housing policy in this country has utterly failed to deliver affordable homes. And the reason why is because it's the wrong policy, that it is over-reliant on the market, on investor funds, and we haven't developed our own state capacity to build like a state construction company. So there's a number of things that this campaign is calling for, like a significant increase in funding in the building of social and affordable housing like no they're i don't know where the government is putting six

billion this year and next year six billion into this so-called rainy day fund they're putting it away and you're going there there is a generation who are literally drowning in the flood of the housing crisis now that money should be put into setting up a public construction company development company that would hire construction workers all the trades give them proper pensionable jobs and guarantee the provision of housing that would go to the not-for-profit housing providers like O'Coulon, the housing associations, that would go to the local authorities. There's a thing now And we had this once, didn't we, in the 1930s? We did. All through the, kind of, all the way up to the 1980s

councils built public housing. We had a national building agency. You know, we've done this before. And to use the devil's advocate argument, right, because I have heard certain politicians who we would call centre-right neoliberals, I've heard them say, oh, we can't do that because large-scale social housing

leads to ghettoisation. You don't want that again. I think it was Radiker. I think it was radical. I think it was radical, but I can't be sure. What do you say to something like that? That is an ideological viewpoint. It is a viewpoint that is not actually related to reality because social housing didn't fail in this country.

Social housing was failed because they stopped building it and they stopped maintaining it and they stopped investing in it. So it became narrowed down. And they marginalized the communities. Exactly. They utterly marginalized them and they created the stigma. And they said, oh, that doesn't work. Social housing doesn't work. Of course it works. It built communities in this country. It still provides housing. And you look at the likes of Austria, in Vienna, half the housing is social housing because it's for a range of incomes. That was the big thing. They went from social council housing, public housing, providing guards, teachers, trades people, homes.

Social housing for everybody, not just for people who are very poor and facing homelessness exactly and in order to have that it means you don't commodify property really you don't commodify housing and property property isn't something necessarily you earn loads of money from exactly and that's the fundamental kind of cultural shift in thinking like we can't we don't policy doesn't have to just change the way we think and understand housing has to change. We commodified it. We turned it into this investment in the Celtic Tiger years, this idea that you make loads of money from property. Yeah. And who says that's right?

Exactly. Who says it? And we hear all the policies about landlords. How can we keep landlords in the market? I mean, you have it all wrong, let the landlords go. Give the homes. Renters need to own their home. You know, if you own multiple properties, you're shutting out someone else from being able to buy a property. The nature of landlordism is exclusion of some people from homes and the accumulation of wealth from renters

and denying them the ability to get a home and when you look what pisses me off about that rory is like if i if if i have a 50 bag of cannabis and i get caught with it i get brought to court and i might face uh jail time right because drugs are considered a terrible thing that's destroying society by the law yeah i well what the fuck is destroying society right now and causing deaths and causing misery to me it's our housing policy it absolutely is and you look at the health impacts the mental health impacts you look at the denial of we are actually in a sense stunting the potential of our country and you know i talk about you know you talk about death you talk about you know mental health there's over 3 000 children

currently in emergency accommodation in this country they are being traumatized yeah by the by the loss of their home there are thousands of children tens of thousands of children and their families living in the private rental sector right now across this country who are literally living in terror about the landlord evicting them and selling up and that's not something a child should have to worry about that's too complex for a fucking child of course it is and their parents how the hell can they parent there's no emotional regulation there the child grows up with a parent who isn't emotionally regulated because the parent is worrying about where they're going to be next week.

Exactly. I've actually spoken to psychologists who are working with children who are living in emergency accommodation, and they talk about the children being in a constant state of hyper vigilance, which means that because the housing stress that their parents are living in, the children take that on as their own stress. And they basically live in this constant state of fight or flight. So at school then, they think everybody is out to get them. They can't concentrate. They can't relax.

They're ashamed. So that's systemic marginalization. And you're setting those kids up for a higher risk of things like addiction issues, severe mental health issues. I mean, we know this, this is what happens. These kids are being traumatized. It's the tens of thousands who are with families in the private rental sector who are in this state of chronic stress. And I would like we talk about institutionalization, you know, that what happened in the mother and baby homes, you know, we've, you know, the absolutely right demands for compensation for redress. We're going to see this down the line. The children who are going to emergency accommodation or homeless today will be there will be redress schemes in the future because our state knows about this. So it's our Magdalene laundries, basically, like with direct provision.

In 15, 20 years' time, we are going to see visibly the terror and impact of this. And then our generation right now is going to have to go, why didn't I do something about it? Why didn't I do something about it? Why didn't I do something about it? Like the way our parents had to say when it came to Magdalene laundries. Absolutely. The state knows about it. The government knows about it. We know about it. So when you ask, why should we protest?

We kind of know about it. That's the thing, Rory, a bit like the Magdalene laundries. It's like, I can go around Dublin or Limerick and I can look at a hotel and I can have an idea that there's loads of families in there but it is still quite kept away from my eyes you know it's hidden it's invisible they are invisible they are invisible children and it is wrong that we allow that and and I think what about the importance of the protest is that we have to stand up as a society for not just those children who are homeless, which we absolutely should, but for all of us, you know, for the young people who are not so young, who are adults stuck at home, who feel ashamed themselves, who feel like they've failed. You haven't failed. This is a fault of policy. This is a fault of government decisions, not yours. And it can change. We can change this. And I think the importance of the

protest is it will bring all those people hopefully together to see that they're not alone. It's not just them, that there are tens and hundreds of thousands affected by this crisis. that there are tens and hundreds of thousands affected by this crisis. And in coming together, if nothing else, it at least gives people a sense of we are not alone. Because it is incredible how after those podcasts that we did, those people contacted me. And I had in my own podcast, got some of them on to tell their story. And other people would contact me and say, thank you. Thank you for at least, I feel I'm no longer alone. I feel somebody is hearing me. I feel that my story is out there at last. It's being told and someone is trying to do something about

it. So I think the starting point has to be, we as a society say no this we're not accepting this this is not normal and it has to change another thing i want to interrogate is so even myself rory right as an irish person i almost feel queasy or i feel like i'm being bold or doing something wrong by using my podcast to ask people to go to a protest. I feel like it doesn't feel healthy. It feels like I'm inciting a fucking riot or something absurd like that when actually what I'm doing is, no, I'm asking people. I'm saying here's an opportunity to exercise your democratic right as a citizen to protest. Here's your opportunity and I'm telling you about it. But yet I have a guilt and a fear, which I know is very specifically Irish, because we don't,

we're not very protest-y and we have a bad history of it. And when I think of protests, I think of it either ending historically in a terrible massacre or us just going absolutely mad. What is it with Irish people and protest? And why are we not very protest-y? Yeah, it's a great question. And do you know what? I feel the exact same.

Like, in calling for this protest... In calling for something which is a right. I feel it. Every tweet I send about this protest, I think and I stop for a second and I go, because people say to me, what's an academic doing calling for a protest? What's an academic? You're not supposed to be. You're also a citizen though. I am, of course. Absolutely. But I'm agreeing. I'd say i feel the same thing it's this pressure on us to conform and i think it goes back to like this multiple uh kind of causes behind it goes back to our catholic church

upbringing you know you don't speak up about things the the repression you know our own traumas we have suffered the sense of you know oh we should just really just be quiet and just accept things and we blame ourselves. We don't, and you want to be, you want to almost be nice to other people. You don't want to go out and protest and say, ah, someone's doing it bad because you don't really want to think they're not doing what they could be doing. But I do think there's a real pressure. Yeah, there's that as well. It's almost like there's a part of me that goes, ah, poor old government they're trying their best they really are aren't they like you know they have the they have us at their heart they just sometimes they're a bit misguided you

know a bit lost like you know we and when i speak to you you say to me actually no blind boy this is a quite a deliberate ideological policy it is. And choices are being made by adults who are in power. And we as citizens don't have to put up with that. No, we don't. We absolutely don't. And I think that's, we have to see that countries across the world, you know, central to democracy and Habermas and, you know, the great, you know, philosophical Democrats, like

demos means the people. Democracy is supposed to be the rule of the people. Like, you know, protest is central to a democratic society. You know, it's civil, you know, peaceful, civil disobedience is civil protest. That is central that that is something that we have to hold dear we have to be able to do this and as a mature society there you go you're also exercising maturity that's the important thing about protest when my little fear in my belly is that it it feels immature it feels loud it feels like a tantrum now i'm not saying this is right i'm just honestly reflecting on my own inner flaws and wondering where they came from on a psychosocial level but it's like no no it's it's very mature and it's a right and people fucking died for this right for us to

protest peace and you you also have to think as well, you know, down through the history of this country, our state, our governments, our ruling classes, whatever we want to call them, the people in power, business, they created this idea that the people were always to blame. So in the economic crises of the, you know, 60s, 70s, 80s, the young people were just told, emigrate. You know, it was the, we treated our cattle better than we treated our young people. You know, it was this, and this myth came out, this idea that, oh, the best thing Ireland exported was its people. And you go, how fucked up is that? Did you think it's a great thing that you export

your kids? It's like, we come up with all these mad ideas about oh, it's a good thing that people emigrate. You're going, what? These are our kids. And that is so insecure as well. It's like every emigrant is considered a cultural ambassador to tell the rest of the world that we're not as bad as people say we are.

I think it's also, it's on an emotional, psychological level, it is part of our repression, part of inability to express sadness, upset, connection, loss, It goes back to our lack of understanding of mental health, of lack of enough of us being in therapy. I think it goes down to that basic level. It's an interesting analogy there, Rory, because in psychology, on the individual level, rather than the larger society level,

a person who has issues with fear of conflict, they fear conflict or arguments with other people because what their fear is, is that they'll explode. They get too angry. So much is repressed that they can't healthily engage in an argument or conflict. So they become passive aggressive. They avoid in case the fear is, oh no, what if I shout? What if I scream?'s that's like my little thing in my belly it's like oh no what if everyone goes up and has a riot yeah and i shouldn't think

like that i don't think a french person would think like that i spoke to a german a person at the weekend in brussels when i was doing a gig and I was just saying to them oh Jesus things are very bad in Ireland with the mental health system and also with the housing system things are very bad and the German person turned to me very quickly and said wow you must be doing a lot of protests people must be very angry and I just went silent I couldn't believe that this German person turned around so quickly with this solution of that sounds awful you must be protesting I said no not really we're not and it was a culture shock for me it was a culture shock yeah in countries like France and Germany maybe they just have a history

of protesting asking for things and getting them we don't really have that do we we don't have it but then it's also part of what is the history that we're told, you know, and what is the kind of, when we look back, even in our recent history, like we had massive protests over the water charges. Water charges is a lovely one to bring up. No, like really huge, like hundreds of thousands of people, people protested outside their home, you know, absolutely peaceful, massive demonstrations, you know. And so it showed we can do it. Similarly about Repeal the 8th, there was massive marches for choice every year. There still is. Tens of thousands of people get together, completely peaceful, you know,

huge expression of anger and love and you look as well remember back to people might remember apollo house in 2016 the occupation of the empty nama building you know you look at the the protest that happened around mount joy square in 2019 the occupation of the empty buildings and that's's another issue. You know, you talked about the... That occupation was met quite violently by the police who stood back as private security guards kicked people's heads. And you talk about violence.

There's the fucking violence, yes. There's evictions going on in this country with dogs and guys in black bloody blacked out hoods. You talk about violence. You know, there's a structural violence that has been, you know, inflicted on a generation, on particularly those young, you know, children and young people who are homeless. But that is not a reason we

should not respond with violence. And also you talk about the need for the violence and kind of anger. And where does the anger go? Because the fear now what's happening is the anger has been directed towards migrants you know, so angry about the housing crisis are excluded from it. And they're saying, oh, it's all the migrants coming in here. It's the refugees that caused the housing crisis. You know, that's what do you say to that? Because that's a question that I get asked a lot when I bring you on. What is the straight up answer to that? The straight up answer is that there are countries like Finland that have had that have had as much in migration as we have. And they don't have a housing crisis because their state builds enough homes for people. And also, they don't allow the level of dereliction and vacancy that we allow.

Like, since I was last on your podcast, the census 2022 results came out, which showed that there are 166,000 vacant homes and would you believe 48,000 almost 50,000 homes were vacant in 2016 as well so they're long term vacant you add then the derelict properties that doesn't even include derelict ones tens of thousands there are enough homes for refugees and for you know generation rent for homeless thousands, there are enough homes for refugees and for, you know, generation rent for homeless Irish people. There are enough homes. But what's really, really worrying for me is that the government is playing into it by saying we can only do this and we can only do

that and we're limited what we can do. That just allows the space then for the right to grow. And this is fascism again. This is back to you blame the migrants for the problem and you divert the anger away from where it should be, which is government policy failure. To people who are already victimized. The most vulnerable, exactly. And I think that that is one of the more important, again, another reason why people should protest

is because we have to stand together. We have to stand with our new Irish, with the Irish who are here, who were born in this country, all together and say, we need a housing system where everyone can have a home as a human right. And that is how we will, you know, grow as a country. And I think as well, you know, when you're talking about, you know, the psychology of protest and there is something in it as well that it suits government for us to think like this, because it's a way that, you know, we stay passive, we stay quiet, we stay off the streets, we don't make noise. We don't complain. And then they can say, oh, you know, we're doing okay. No one's really given out about it. And the other thing is people then emigrate because they feel despair. They don't feel there's any hope. Whereas if we get momentum around a protest movement like equality, like marriage equality, like repeal, we can get momentum and say, no, we're not accepting this. We want you to stay here. The young people don't emigrate. Stay and let's build this country with homes through a state construction company that

would give people long term permanent jobs through, you know, bringing the vacant and derelict homes back into use through setting up a modular home factories. These are these rapid build. We could be building thousands of them. What's your opinion on the modular homes? I think it's great. It's a great idea. These are homes that can be built in a matter of weeks in a factory. They can be put up in a site. They're much cheaper.

You can build them for about 100,000 a home. Is it appropriate housing? It is. Absolutely. It is housing. It's not the modular of the past. Modular housing can now be built to high standard, long lasting. It is actually better environmentally. It is much less waste,

much less carbon emissions from it. It is green housing. It sounds like it's also you don't need as much construction workers. No, you don't. No. But the other thing as well, modular housing doesn't fit into the model of commodification because that's not a great investment, is it? Well, exactly. And it's much, much cheaper. Developers don't make the same profit from it. And this is part of it. And you can build on a scale. You can build

rapidly on a huge scale and they don't want this like i was debating um that causes all the other houses to go down in value doesn't it exactly and and the thing about it is we could be building you know and providing through modular homes to state construction to contract in the private sector And I made the point that during COVID, you might remember, the private health system for a period of time was brought into the use of the public health system because we faced a health emergency. I think if I was Minister for Housing,

I would be holding an emergency summit and I would be telling the private construction industry, for a period of time until this housing emergency is over, you work to provide homes on an emergency basis for people. And there's no more hoarding. There's no more just deciding whether you build or not. The capacity of the private sector needs to be put to meet the housing need of people, not the market viability, the profit levels. Like one private development company made 100 million in profit last year from selling 1,500 homes.

That's 66,000 euro profit per home. And the profit didn't go back to reinvesting in housing. It went to international shareholders yeah like that's that's just a system that's not about homes that's that's about profit and with any with any opinion that you express here because the thing is i'm conscious of my my listenership i'm gonna have a lot of listeners who are nodding their head and completely agreeing with you, right? But I always learn, every time I have you on

or any time I have you on a live podcast, I always end up with a few comments from people who are probably fucking landlords going, I fucking disagree with everything he says. And what I always think a decent solution to that is you just propose there, we'll say, that the government would go to the private

sector as it as it did during covid with the health sector and say you work for us now for an emergency period of time where was that done before and where has it worked in other countries well i think if you look at it the model that i just explained there was during covid and the private health system they They went into the private hospitals and they said, they went to the owners of the private hospitals and they said, we need your capacity. So basically, we're

contracting you to provide if we need public health. They're still getting paid. They still get paid, they do, and they hammered out an agreement in terms of the cost of that. So it would be the same principle but who has a country done that with housing i don't know if a country has done that in housing no i don't know and that's you know a reasonable question but i suppose the model

is there from the health system and what other countries do is we look at helsinki for example in finland they do have a public construction company um and i think you know if we look at Helsinki, for example, in Finland, they do have a public construction company. And I think, you know, if we look at, for example, we do also contract builders in this country, you know, the public sector, local authorities, housing bodies, contract builders, private builders to build. And I agree with you, you know, there are different views around this. But I think, you know, I think... Because that's why I'm asking the tough questions this time, Rory, is because I want everyone on board for this. No, so do I.

It shouldn't be divisive for anybody. No, it shouldn't be. But I think there is a real need for an honest, real, I would say real conversation, real discussion with those who own vacant properties, who own, you know, land, who have capacity to build,

and saying, is it right that you are not using that, and it is not being used to provide homes? And I said, it is allowing that vacancy, dereliction, vacant land, not- Legalized vandalism. But it's like hoarding food in a famine. And I think that there is a real question about, is it right? And I actually believe most of them would go, no, it's not, actually. And we do need to change how we think about this. Do you have a minority who will bang up and down,

going, oh my God, you're infringing on our right to make profit from housing. And we'll go, yeah, okay, you can express that view. But you know what? As a society, we are deciding that we actually want to save this country. We want to provide a future for our kids. And we are going to do this very, very differently. We need a huge, massive change in our approach to housing to see it as home. Like, what are we doing, blind boy, if we can't provide people homes? Like, what is the point of it all? Mm-hmm.

Because that's the, as you say, that's the safe base. That's the... It's no different to a little child, the development of a small little child. The child who feels safe and secure is the child who feels comfortable to curiously play and the child who doesn't feel safe and secure does not explore and doesn't develop and adults are the exact fucking same and home not just a house not owning your own gaff simply the confidence of at least i have these four walls

around me and i'm not the wolf isn't at my door once you have fucking that then you have this ability to achieve meaning to have better mental health to plan for your future to feel safe but if the fucking the wolf is at everyone's fucking door if you're a renter in this country or if you most people with mortgages and when the wolf is at your door you're not secure and you're not emotionally regulated you are vigilant and frightened and that impacts fucking everything i always compare it to every single 90s sitcom that I can think of whether it be Friends whether it be Seinfeld whatever no one ever spoke about their fucking rent and what you have is all of these characters who are trying to cope with how mundane and boring life is because everything is secure and I kind of like that. I think that's fantastic.

I'd love to be bored and to have space to explore because nobody's worried about getting booted out of their house. Yeah. And not just the boredom. That might have been a bit too much of a tangent there,

talking about friends in Seinfeld, but you're not a crack. No, no, no, it's not at all. I think you're absolutely right. I think that there's almost a yearning for boredom because as you're right. A yearning for boredom, that's it. A yearning for... People would love to be bored. Love to have the space to be able to just think and to, you know, be creative, to do, pursue the things that give them meaning in their lives. And it is not just the renters.

As I've said, there is a generation stuck in their parents' home. This is what I want to speak about, the hidden homeless, as you call it, Rory. The hidden homeless, which is what we don't, because there are people who kind of don't self-identify as homeless, but their material conditions are actually homeless. And I write about this in my book because I spoke to them for the research for it. And it was really interesting because psychologically, they find it harder to talk about their situation than renters do. Because in a renter, your relationship is with a landlord who you might or might not get on with, but they're not related to you.

And you can give out about them, and it's fine. But when your landlord is, in a sense, your parents, you can't give out about them. And they might be doing it for free. And they're doing it for free, or maybe you're contributing something to cost or whatever. But the point is, you're there by their goodwill.

And you feel that giving out about your housing situation or complaining about it somehow makes you ungrateful. You also don't want to upset them because they mightn't be aware of the level of stress you're under or worry about it or fear. There's also the thing, do you think your parents think you're a failure because you're still at home? The thing is too too we have been conditioned to if you live at home with your parents and you're over the age of 20 you're a fucking loser yeah and that is the message that i have learned since fucking childhood yeah that's what we're hard it's hard to shift those messages off it's

hard to not internalize something that society has told you. A lot of people listening to this podcast grew up in the fucking Celtic tiger, where we were told to be a success, to be a meaningful human, a meaningful citizen is to own not just one house, but two or three. And now look at us. So how are we not supposed to feel like fucking failures when that's the message that we've been handed down the incorrect message from society exactly absolutely how are you not supposed to feel like i have done something wrong that i

have failed as a person and you don't think that impacts on people's self-esteem of course it does and their sense of self and what that means and even that like even in a head it's it's hard to maintain sense of self living with your fucking parents regardless of the circumstances because when you live with your parents you you kind of infantilize you return to your family of origin emotionally of course you're not leaving it and you know people describe as you know they're you, when you're 26, 27 and your parents are saying to you when they hear you going up to bed, you go, did you brush your teeth? Yeah. Text me when you're out, you know? Oh, I have to text my parents

when I'm going to be home. Oh, I better not stay out too long. I can't bring anybody home. You can't have a relationship. As you said, where do you have sex? You know, these are the most basic things. How do you have relationships? How do you, where do you have the space and time? And then we know as well that there are, again, tens of thousands of multiple families living together. It's not just the adult kid on their own living with parents. It's families moving back in and people are having to divide up their turn in living rooms into bedrooms yeah or the fucking log cabin out the back garden yeah like this is just this is it's beyond anything we've seen before let's speak as well something that since the last time i had you on this podcast which i believe was 2020 i believe something which also what that we're seeing emerging is students not able to attend college I've seen landlords rent out fucking tents in their gardens to students who are attending university yeah these are people also who can you speak about what the impact on

people trying to just attend university and they can't get accommodation. Yeah, the kind of COVID masked, you know, the kind of crisis going on and worsening. Because during COVID, obviously, people went, you know, it was back, people stayed in their homes, college went online for a fair bit. And it has only been this kind of since last, since September, that this crisis, the student accommodation crisis really became revealed again as how bad it is. It is just like unbelievable. Like students in my class, you know, are saying we're commuting four to five hours to get to lectures. People are dropping out of courses.

Weird people. Of course, you're a fucking lecturer, man. So you're firsthand i am you might forget that yeah yeah yeah people are dropping out of masters or master's courses you know that you do a master's after the yeah an undergraduate um because they can't find accommodation like this is just like people are actually, they're working more, they have to work more in terms of jobs. Students aren't just working one job, they're working two jobs to try and cover the rent. As I said, they're commuting massive distances, which means they don't get that college experience. You know, and people poo-poo that and say, ah, what's that? Yeah.

No, that's important. That's a fucking essential part of of of that's the transition period of becoming an adult exactly but otherwise university where you find yourself you find but it's also college um and university just becomes this utilitarian thing i'm just going to get an education and a skill that gets me a job. Which is fucking harsh shit. Like I went to college, Rory, and like I went to college for four years and did a degree in graphic design. I am not a graphic designer.

I have no fucking interest in being one. But what I learned in college was discipline and it had nothing to do with the course, the experience of being in college, the experience of the responsibility of deadlines not having my arse wiped like i was in school that's what fucking stood to me not necessarily the course so people who say there you're just going there to get an education what stood to me wasn't necessarily the qualification i got but the experience and

the process of doing it that That's what stood to me. Yeah. And also what it is, is it gives you, it's supposed to expand your thinking, you know, give yourself space and time to think critically about the world. And space to fail. And you're exactly space to fail, space to be yourself, figure out your place in the world. And you't do that if, as I said, you're commuting five hours a day to go in for a few hours of lectures and then you're gone again. You're not engaging with the college societies, with other people. It's also the social aspect of it. There's no crack. You're allowed to have crack in college.

Crack is an important facet of being a human and crack is being removed. Where's the house parties that you're like, you know, doing all sorts at, you know, being yourself and, you know, learning what are your limits and learning what your limits aren't. And it is, it's removing that, you know, college experience, which is life experience. And also people who are, it's worsening inequality of access to college and university as well, because it is those people who are hit hardest by the cost of living crisis. They can't pay the cost of fuel to commute. They can't pay the rents. So they're the ones from disadvantaged backgrounds who go, no, I can't do this. It's too much. So college becomes more unequal in terms of its access again. But even the rich kids can't do this it's too much so college becomes more unequal in terms of

its access again so but even the rich kids can't do it now because the proper the house doesn't even exist yeah and and you know people go on oh we've you know the government goes on saying oh we've loads of student accommodation been built in the last five or six years but it's all been built by investor funds that was their model investor funds who build these hugely expensive student accommodation that no you know normal uh student from ireland can afford and yeah you know this is not this is not actual student accommodation they had no fund for universities or third level to go build their own accommodation they had no plan for it they just said ah the private market will sort that so is is it mostly

uh we'll say very wealthy international students who are availing of that type of student accommodation it is or wealthy irish students or families who can probably not really afford it but are putting everything they have into it to cover it so it's more but you know it's becoming like like college in america where one of the beautiful things about Ireland is that you could go to college and not be left with terrible debt. Because if you leave a college student with terrible debt, then that student can't go on to they don't have space to fail in their chosen field. You could be very conspiratorial about it. Now I know this is going a bit

left field on it, but, you know, when students don't have time and space to think critically and get involved in protest, you know, but like you think, like this is the generation who are now, you know, who had the massive climate strikes and, you know, who organized that, who are, you know are really politicized.

They are the generation who are looking at, they will be living, as we are already, with the results and impacts of climate change, of failure of governments to make any real change around that, of the kind of commodification of our very existence through social media. That's a great point rory because college is also where people find people become radicalized in college and people find their politics and people find their ideals in college and they meet other people who are that way and they become activists in college yeah so that space is is also being targeted when you have students who can't meet their basic needs when it's been

whether it's been targeted or not okay yeah right i actually won't give them the credence impacted impacted exactly of thinking that logically um they i don't think they have the capacity to plan it that much but the the uh so i was only joking about that it's not a real course but it is but it might not be a target but it's an observable outcome and exactly it's it's a result happening it's a consequence of it so you wonder why isn't there you know huge massive student protest students don't have the time they're not involved they're not able to connect they're not able to organize because they're not in those spaces in the same way and there is a certain amount of that as well about the you know protests now during covid had

a massive impact on people massive people were isolated are isolated and people are only kind of coming back together in the last few months and there's a real sense that you know the because people say oh where are the protests and you're going well we've just been through a global pandemic and people were very isolated. People were tired as well, man. Tired, absolutely tired. And there was a certain amount as well during COVID, there was a hope that something might be different out of it.

You know, there'll be hope that, you know, all these things that we said, we'd all come together as communities, you know, public health, you know, we think differently about our values. It's not all about, you know, you know, profit, commuting, work. That lasted for about a month. It lasted about a month. Yeah, it did. Yeah. Because it was a beautiful moment at the start of the pandemic where there was this collective sense of hope. And then it just started to fall apart. And it fell apart, to be honest, because just from my opinion, it's when the government started giving mixed messages and not adhering to promises they made. And when the government gave the public the feeling that we are not in control and we don't really know what we're doing.

As soon as that happened, the collective goodwill dissipated and people separated into different camps. They did. And they also didn't use it as a chance for a profound change in how we run our societies and our economies. Like there was things like we talked about inequality, even home, for example. Like during the pandemic, there was the massive inequality revealed between those who had, you know, big homes and offices to be able to go back to, and others who were living in overcrowding, who didn't have homes to go to. You know, homelessness fell during the pandemic

because Airbnb didn't exist. All these properties were freed up and we suddenly go, oh, we can find homes for people. And then they didn't follow through on that. They didn't say, okay, we saw what happened there. We saw what we can do. And Airbnb is another example of this. The amount of homes that have been rented permanently on that basis and should be actual rental homes. But even that notion of us being together and the welfare payments, the PUP

payments, for example, cutting them back and the state itself saying, we will do whatever we need to do to address this crisis. And you go, they should have followed on that into housing and going, we're going to follow this now. Whatever is needed. But they went back to, they just said, let's go back to business. Let's go back to how it was beforehand. Exactly. And another thing as well, I think you mentioned to me before, Rory, that Airbnb are kind of, their plan is nearly to become renters or their plan is the, not necessarily to be just for tourists, that's it. Where he talked about, they want Airbnb to be the future of not holiday homes,

but people's living. And you think you stop, that makes you stop and think, what are they talking about? So what they're thinking about is people would go to work in a city, you know, on a number of days a week basis, a number of months a week or they go and people go, oh, yeah, that doesn't sound too bad, does it? But then you follow it through and you think about it and then you go, OK, so if more and more homes are only available to rent on a three or four day basis.

And what he said very explicitly was we you you would be getting rid of the landlord-tenant relationship. Yeah, there you go. And then with that, you get rid of rights. Exactly. You would no longer have leases. So it's what Deliveroo and Uber do to their workers by effectively not having them as workers, but let's do that to people who rent now.

Exactly. Let's change the definition and words of what a renter is to effectively strip back rights that already exist. Exactly. Because Airbnb sees this is their market. They could turn tenants into Airbnb, whatever they call them. What's a person who goes on Airbnb who lives off or not who lives off it, but I don't know what. Probably a guest. A guest, exactly.

I saw this in the UK. I did a BBC series where we investigated the housing market in the UK. And what we investigated were several companies who were doing this. And they weren't, people weren't renters, they were members of a club. So you're getting a, you're renting effectively, but your contract does not say that you're renting. You're were members of a club so you're getting a get you're renting effectively but your contract does not say that you're renting you're a member of a club and they were using the the law that they were using was holiday letting rather than renting and what meant was is people were being exploited people didn't have anyone to complain to if

something went wrong in their house because you're not a fucking renter and this contract says that you're actually just a member of a club and we can do whatever the fuck you want. And it was the most marginalized people with poor English who got exploited into this and were left in serious debt and was really, really dishonest. And it left me terrified because this was only this was 2018 in the UK. And I was going, someone's going to do this on a bigger scale exactly and that's what

they were thinking that it's you move from being a tenant to a guest and you where you have no rights whatsoever you're on a limited basis

and it's like and you're actually seeing that increasingly being advertised in Ireland on the likes of Daft it's a five day let, a three day let, you know, a six month let. And so it's this huge increase in insecurity.

And this is the fundamental point that I make in the book, which is that so much of our lives are becoming more insecure and kind of commodified all the time. Like, you know, with social media, with corporations trying to commodify our very, you know, attention to, you know, jobs, being on contracts, that the place, it becomes even more important that we have a base of a home from which some way we can have independence. But of course course i make the point so just just to make just to sorry to interrupt now rory just to to drive the point home so we're all already familiar with this for years when it comes to employment people will get laid off and then those full-time jobs with contracts and rights are gone and instead they offer people these short-term contracts where you have no security

in your job whatsoever they want to now do this with housing yeah they want to do this now with housing exactly and and this is the point that in in a way when you're living in insecure housing you want to you're becoming more than likely to get try and spend money getting lost in the world of virtual reality and you know you you want to and yeah you gotta look at the metaverse here you gotta look at the fact that facebook one of the biggest companies in the world is investing billions in this metaverse and i have seen someone bought a property on the metaverse for something like 200 grand i saw them doing it online this is a virtual house that somebody spent 200 grand on. And exactly. And like, I don't know if anyone's watched, you've probably seen it, Black Mirror on Netflix. Yeah. You know, these, you know, they're the thinking of, you know,

people basically go into, I'm sure it's back to the avatar idea. You know, you go into this virtual reality world because your own world is so crap and they make money from that. Then they make money from the advertising. They may make money from that then they make money from the advertising they may make money from you logging into i mean i've done it already myself rory like i i i had a loan on one of those um virtual reality headsets yeah and when you use netflix on that headset you're still watching netflix but you're in a better house yeah so i'm sitting down on a nicer couch with a nicer view and this huge screen in front of me then i take it off and i look around and i'm like oh shit i'm in limerick

i know i know i'm too afraid to put one on i'd be i'd be like oh my god what what what will where will the world go to what will you're right because that is it you get lost and they want us to because that is the ultimate commodification it is the the turning our attention into a business. They want to capture every bit of us. Whereas a home, having a home is almost the biggest bit of resistance we can make to that. Well, it's the last thing. It's home and then after that also water, things like that, things that we take for granted. But if you have a home, you have a space to be yourself, you have a space to develop, a space to be secure, to be an artist, to be a teacher, to be whatever you want to be. And you have a space within which you don't have to just

try and escape into that world. You can be in this real world, you know, in the world with us together. And that is part of it, you know. Again, we come back to the protest. Why is a protest important and why is it us coming together? as human beings we can come and be alongside each other and see we're not alone experience a feeling of hope as well feeling of hope of togetherness and like there's nothing like describing the feeling of solidarity when there are thousands of people there together and you do feel something like it raises the hair in the back of your neck you go you have a power here because that's the other thing we do have a power yeah we do the government is is absolutely terrified that there would be a massive protest movement in this country around

housing because they know it's the issue they're likely to lose the next election on and if people make noise and an example of how it can actually bring change why it's like you know people feel oh what's the point in getting out you know what's the point going out there it's not going to change it and the government yeah and it's november as well like it's november it might be pissing rain and you know one thing i'm legitimately worried about and this is nuts rory i'm legitimately worried about all right 26th november a normal average people are going to be going to this protest some people will

like if someone from Limerick or someone from Tipperary they might actually say to themselves I'm going to go up to this protest right but it's the 26th of November fuck it I'll get a bit of Christmas shopping done in Dublin as well and they won't be able to find a hotel yeah like that's legitimately like there are people who are gonna go to the protest and go

well i'm in dublin as well so i might as well do a bit of shopping yeah i might make a day of it and that what they're protesting for they won't get a fucking hotel yeah yeah no it's mad it's mad yeah the accommodation which is a real problem it is not everyone wants to go up to dublin and come straight down absolutely yeah not everybody wants to go up to Dublin and come straight down. Absolutely. Not everybody wants to do that. And some people might go to the zoo, bring the kids to the zoo, whatever. Why not? Human beings have to live lives and I'm assuming this is a weekend, isn't it? Yeah, it is.

Yeah, it's a Saturday. It's a Saturday. Yeah. If it was me, I'd want to make a weekend out of it, but I won't. I'm not getting a fucking hotel. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's true. It's true. Which is nuts. Yeah. Yeah, it it is but here's the other thing you don't just have one point actually really important point sorry before you go on that the idea of the what will change and does it change anything there was two things this

government said they weren't going to do one was reintroduce the ban on evictions from the private rental sector yeah the other one was a vacant property tax they yeah yet they what have they done in the last two or three months introduced a vacant property vacant homes tax very small but they introduced it and it's not effective it won't be effective enough but they introduced it and they've brought in a ban on evictions in the private rental sector until next april both of those things they said they wouldn't do. Why did they do it? Because people like myself, the housing charities and other opposition, the public have called for it and put pressure on them.

And they felt they had to do it. And also the housing crisis has got so bad. There was families turning up homeless who have been told we don't have emergency accommodation and you have to go to a garter station there's families sleeping in garter stations fuck the crisis has got so bad you know there's families sleeping in tents alongside that crisis but the reason why they the they have had to respond is because of public pressure public anger the issue being raised so it shows they can be made do things that they don't necessarily have much will or interest in doing or feel that they can do.

And that is the power of people saying, we want you to do this because it can make change. It does make change. In fact, you look down through history, the origins of public housing, of council housing, is in protest. The lockout in 1913 in this country, central to that was the issue of the tenements. The first social housing was built in this country because tenants were protesting against the big landlords. You know, across Europe, it's the same. Across the world, public housing comes from people,

the trade unions in the early part of the 19th, 20th century, protesting. Like this is, you know, things change when people stand up. You know, our democracy comes from that. The civil rights movements. You know, again, back to repeal, marriage equality. We can change things. Things don't have to be like this you know the climate strikes the protests the young people out there like remember when we saw

them it was inspiring and and you know so much has to happen around climate change and you know people need to protest around that too and i think in housing we can bring them together because there's so much we can do around providing green affordable homes around retrofitting homes again what a state construction company would do but the other thing as well and this is worth pointing out people i'm people would like to be more active and to have more time to think about the climate emergency this becomes difficult when you're dealing with a personal housing emergency. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And that's a fact. Yeah.

And people go to you. When you don't know where you're living next month, because you don't know whether your rent's going to go up, whether you're going to get evicted, you don't have time to think about much else other than that. And do you know what's even worse? And this isn't just Ireland. This is like. Yeah.

This is around the fucking world. Housing insecurity is around the world. As they say, you can't think about the end of the world when you can't think about the end of the week yeah you know and that's absolutely true but I think and not that I think I know we can address both of those emergencies together in housing and I give you an example the private rental sector there is no mental health into that too yeah absolutely you absolutely because they're in in inextricably linked and i was in talking to my son's fifth year class their politics class in yeah in secondary school and i was giving them a talk and i was struck by the level of i asked them what are the biggest social issues for them as teenagers and they spoke about

anxiety, social anxiety, about climate about housing as well and I was just struck. I didn't have that word in 50 year men. Yeah I know, that's what I was struck by and I could see them and they said and they said what's the point in it all where is the future for us

fuck, that's what they said and I was literally, I was I was fighting back fuck that's what they said and I was literally I was I was I was fighting back tears that's a tough one yeah that's very tough you know this was my son

and his classmates going where is the future for us you never want to hear what's the point from a young person and I just went that's why we need to protest that's why we have to we have to give them a future

around climate, around housing. And why protest matters because it is people standing together saying it has to be different. And we're not going to let it be different. We're not going to be let it be like this. We're going to come together and give hope and say, we're not going away

and we're going to continue and we're going to bring this and meet these challenges together and bring everyone who we can together. Because what's the alternative, Blind Boy? Like, what is it? The alternative is, and there is a roadmap for things to get worse.

That's the alternative. And I'm sorry to say it, but that's the fucking roadmap because you, the thing that I always shit my pants over, right i've said this many many times like you mentioned there about airbnb and the ceo saying they want to change the definition of what a renter is right so that's just airbnb who's buying all the fucking housing private private investor funds my fear is people's landlords is no longer going to be a human being but a corporation a company and these private investment funds are

going to be corporate landlords and they're going to change the definition of what a renter is and it's going to happen huge huge huge and then no one has any rights anymore because you're no longer a renter and if you don't like it fuck off because we own all the property and we're a huge big investment fund and all that money just trickles up the people's pensions who are older exactly exactly and the thing about it is that the again there are it doesn't have to be like this one of the most important things i was trying to you know i've been talking about we talked about before it does not have to be like this one of the most important things i was trying to you know i've been talking about we talked about before it does not have to be like this there's countries like finland like austria denmark they don't have this housing crisis in this country before we built public homes we can

do it again there is you know a not-for-profit housing company called okulan Co-Housing Alliance. They're like a developer, but they don't make profit. They provide the homes at what they call the cost of building them. So they can provide homes at a hundred grand cheaper than the private developers. But nobody, you know, the government, the private market, they don't want people to know about this, that there's actually an other way of providing homes that are actually genuinely affordable, that people can buy and rent. We have the land. We have the finance. We should be using these other ways of doing housing that can actually make sure people have homes.

And also, too, like it's about changing the framework of how we think like it's almost you're nearly making an argument for prohibition in a sense that i'm a giant investment fund i want to buy an entire housing estate and i want to rent at however much i like and i want to cut uh civilians out of buying those houses. No, that's prohibited. That's illegal. It's illegal because to do that massively impacts the public health of the community. So that's illegal. That's what I want to see.

I think that should be illegal. I want a prohibition model around what corporate landlords can do and go, no, that's illegal. And there's a good reason for that. Because if you can make drugs illegal, it's like, well, why can't we do it with rich bastards in housing?

Seriously, the impacts are there. I can go to jail for smoking a fucking joint. But you don't go to jail if you don't register your tenant, if you exploit your tenant. You know, if you don't provide proper housing, if you exploit your tenant, you know, if you don't provide proper housing, there's no landlords going to jail.

It is incredible how we don't enforce the regulation, you know, the regulation that exists. This is hurting and killing people. And it's just like, it's so wrong. And, you know, the thing about it is you are,

and we are really pushing out the boat here, but I think like my hope is the younger generations and the people who are affected, your listeners, they don't see housing as property investment. They see it as a home. And they're like, I don't want fucking two homes or three homes. I'm not going to wonder

what's the value of my property. I just want a home that I can live in. And I think that's going to be the, that is the real driver of change. I think the change is happening. It's just politics and government hasn't caught up.

But that's where most people are at. Like the idea of speaking to someone in their 20s or 30s and them even referring to property as a commodity yeah it's just like no i'm tired as fuck and i'm sick of renting can i can i just have something or i'm willing to rent if it just means not getting absolutely exploited i just don't want to think about this anymore i want to think about my hobbies i want to think about my life't want to think about this anymore. I want to think about my hobbies. I want to think about my life. I want to think about kids.

That's for people. Yeah. And I want to think about not having to worry about this. I want to think about having a job that I enjoy rather than this job that I fucking hate because this is what I need to pay this rent.

Because a lot of that, some people, some people want to work a job that they like for less money because it brings them joy. That's being denied to people. And another bit of hope

that I feel is that people are realizing like schools can't get teachers. That's another thing up in Dublin. That was a shocking article that I read about a month ago where there's a shortage of teachers in Dublin

because the teachers can't get gaffes. They can't get gaffes. And that's not just teachers. It goes to nurses. It goes to guards. It goes to construction workers. I'm getting contacted by construction workers, plasters, carpenters, saying we're emigrating

because we don't see how we can get a home. The construction workers building the homes are looking at the home i can't buy any of these they're either owned by investor funds or they're at such a high price there's no way i'll be able to afford one or i don't qualify for the social housing ones and you go that's just and the thing about again why i'm saying there's hope in that in that people are finally realizing even the people who disagreed with me up to this point the economists you know whoever the conservative you know thinkers and the the finna fall finna gale voters who might have gone ah he's a bit mad isn't he like you know they're calling for a state construction company and you know they are

now seeing that the economy the country is being now in jeopardy because we've fucked it up so badly on homes and housing. And they realize something radical has to change. So one final point, Rory, right? Because I said I was going to have you for a fucking half an hour and we managed to go into one hour, but I leave it at that because it was such a good chat. Yeah, thanks. Final point, right? The fine details of it when is the protest what is it called where can people get information where do people meet yeah so it's raise the roof that as i said across society coalition it's going to be a peaceful march a peaceful rally there'll be speakers musicians one o'clock on saturday 26th of

november parnell square dublin city center it'll go along for go on for no longer than an hour or two bring your kids bring family bring friends please if you can make it if you can't make it get onto social media join the the hashtags, boost it. And there will be more. Because that's the other thing too. And that's, what's important as well. We live in a digital age. Yeah.

So not everyone's going to be able to make it to this protest. Yeah. But if you, even if you're on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram that day, and you are boosting photographs of the protest. Boosting support. And say. That is valid. That's really valid. Exactly. It makes it something that cannot be ignored.

Exactly. You share it and say, I support this. And remember that from the water protests. Yeah. And we have to remember, the water protests worked. They did.

People went out and protested and now our water didn't get privatized. That fucking worked. And the water protest wasn't just people getting out there physically there was a huge amount of online protesting too and that really worked and it made things incredibly visible and the other thing people can do as well is there is a petition um that i set up as part of my book called Gaffes for All, and it's on Uplift. And there's 10 solutions that I set out that I call on the government to introduce. If you could go on,

sign that petition as well. There was a great response to the last petition. We had, I got almost 40,000. We got almost 40,000 signatures to the one against the vulture funds and that was calling for a right to housing referendum which it looks like we might have but the solutions are on that if you can go over sign that petition so that's another thing you can do if you can't make a protest And I'm assuming too Rory this isn't the

last protest I'm assuming you're going to do this and then you plan more and what I'd like to see as well Rory what I mentioned there is I'm fearful of the person from Tipperary, the person from Longford, who can't make it. Like, when are we going to see this nationwide? Is this going to be the first and then you've got your raise the roof in Limerick, in Longford, in Leash, the whole shebang? Yeah, I hope so.

I think so. It has to go that way. It has to go that way. It has to spread around the country. go that way it has to go that way it has to spread around the country and imagine in the new year there will probably be like there was during the water protest regional protests in cities and towns and days of action where people can come out wherever they wherever they are you know we have to and and it is also you know protest as well isn't just about the day itself which is so important it is about the conversations that happen then it is about the talk about what did

they what were they looking for, the solutions. We have to spread these solutions around, discuss them, and bring in people who don't agree with us. And as I said, I do think we need to have this conversation. So you spent the day debating on the radio, didn't you? I did. Someone disagreed with you? Yeah, I was debating with Michael O'Flynn, the developer from Cork, a big developer around... And how did that go?

You know, it was challenging. It was, you know, I put across the argument as I've put across here. And he was saying, oh, you know, a state construction company wouldn't work and it wouldn't add any capacity. And I was like, well, in actual fact, there's, you know, we're losing capacity of construction workers because they don't see any possibility of having a stable, secure job, which is what a public company could give them. But, you know, I said as well that, as I said, you know, I think if I was minister for housing, you know, I would call a summit of public and private, you know, providers together and say, look, we need to come up with a plan together where we deliver homes.

You know, I think that they realize, the private developers realize, and people realize that we are in an unprecedented emergency. So things have to change. We have to come together as a country and say, we need to put aside our differences and we need to work together and do things differently and make this happen. And I really feel it is so dark right now for so many people in housing. It is utterly heartbreaking, the situations people are going through. But I think I feel it's a bit like the, not to be too bullshitty, but it's a bit like the night is darkest just before the dawn. And I do feel that within this crisis such depths we're in that if we push

hard now for a change we can really make a difference so that we never have this crisis again so we do have the changes and I really feel that we can change this country and be part of it and at least say we didn't try anyway at least we can say we didn't try. Rory Harn

thank you very much for that wonderful chat. It's called the Raise the Roof Protest. Look it up on Google. This Saturday, the 26th of November, Parnell Square,

1pm in Dublin. In the meantime, I'll be back next week with a hot take. Rub a dog, give a saucer of milk to a cat, show your ankles

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