Cork singer brings protest on housing crisis home to Government

Cork musician Martin Leahy, who has been singing his own song about homelessness for 187 weeks outside Leinster House in Dublin, was invited in to address a housing committee this week.

The singer/songwriter addressed the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, where he appealed for something to be done to help the large number of homeless and hidden homeless people in the country.

Mr Leahy said that every week, on a Thursday, he travels to Dublin and stands outside the gates of the Dáil to sing his song ‘Everyone Should Have A Home’, and that this was his 187th week protesting about the housing crisis.

He explained that he had personal experience of the issue.

“In 2022, I received word that my landlord was planning on selling the property I was living in and I was going to be evicted,” he said.

“Even though I lived in a rural part of West Cork, I quickly realised that I could not afford the rent of the very few properties that were available.

“I have always rented and have always been able to pay my rent. This was the first time in my life that I could not do it.

“I lived in a constant state of fear and stress for the best part of three years and eventually I had to enter what’s known as the hidden homeless. The hidden homeless are estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands and do not make the official homeless figures.”

After three years, he found a place to rent eight months ago.

“I considered myself lucky because I had someone to stay with,” said Mr Leahy.

“There are so many families who have nowhere to go and are made to enter emergency accommodation.”

He said that through his weekly protest he has heard of people “having to live in rat-infested squalor” or in “mould-infested hovels”, and that homeless people share stories of staying in emergency accommodation or sleeping on the streets in sleeping bags outside empty buildings.

“When I started my protest in 2022 it was unimaginable to me that the housing crisis could get any worse,” he said. “The official homeless figures at that point were just over 10,000. As we head into Christmas 2025 in Ireland, the figure is 16,766 people.”

He criticised the Government for lifting the eviction ban and said more needs to be done on long-term solutions. “Build social and affordable housing. It was done before in this very country when the country’s wealth was nothing close to what it is now,” he said.

“If serious action was taken in tackling vacancy and dereliction it could go a long way to solving this crisis. We all see the empty boarded-up buildings in our cities and in our towns. Around 163,000 vacant properties in the country at the moment. The majority require no planning; the structures are already there.

“We watch these homes slowly rot in front of our eyes as the housing crisis gets worse and worse.

“I don’t know anything about the personal lives of the party members in Government but I’m going to take a guess that none of their children will be homeless this Christmas,” Mr Leahy added.