Biden’s Dublin visit won’t deter housing protestor

A Cork housing advocate who has travelled to Dublin to protest against the housing crisis every week for almost a year has vowed that even a visit by the US president won’t stop him.

Martin Leahy (47) has protested outside Leinster House every Thursday since May of last year, travelling up from his home in Bandon, and he says that even if President Biden’s visit means he can’t get onto Kildare Street this week, he’ll get as close as he can.

The US president is due to give an address to a joint sitting of the Oireachtas on Thursday, and security will be extremely tight in Leinster House and in the surrounding area, with TDs and senators told they cannot use either of the complex’s car parks on the day, and political journalists warned they will need extra accreditation to get inside the gate.

With that in mind, Mr Leahy, who has, every week for the past 47 weeks, sang outside the railings of the national parliament the song he wrote to protest against the housing crisis, Everyone Should Have A Home, has said he will perform the song this week, although he doesn’t yet know where.

“I will still go there, but I won’t be outside the Dáil, I will get as close as I can, though, I’ll be however near security will leave me,” he said.

Mr Leahy said he was hopeful that he might get relatively close to Kildare Street, perhaps somewhere like the far end of Molesworth Street, which faces down toward Leinster House.

“I think it’s just shocking that the Government could recall the Dáil because Joe Biden is visiting but they couldn’t recall the Dáil to discuss the housing crisis,” he said.

Mr Leahy is one of several thousand people facing eviction following the lifting at the end of March of the Government’s temporary ban on no-fault evictions.

He received an eviction notice last year, but the temporary ban had protected him until now, and he said he is facing an uncertain future. 

The Cork activist said he had never had a concrete plan to travel to Leinster House every week, but he intends to continue, at the very least until the first anniversary of his protest 

“I didn’t really plan to do this, but I do have the 52 [consecutive weeks] in my sights now,” he said.