On Thursday night a number of activists now known as Home Sweet Home occupied the vacant Apollo House and opened it up to Dublin's homeless people - or as many of them as they can safely accommodate.
A spokesperson described the occupation as an act of civil disobedience on Friday night's Late Late Show.
At present about 35 homeless persons are accommodated there. Support for the action has been enormous.
Prominent among the occupiers/supporters are Brendan Ogle, Glen Hansard, Jim Sheridan, Saoirse Ronan, Liam O Maonlaí, Rosi Leonard, Damien Dempsey, Christy Moore, Conor O'Brien, John Connors, musicians Hozier, members of Kodaline band, Quentin Sheridan, Dean Scurry, Irish Housing Network, unions Mandate and Opatsi.
The plight of the homeless has deteriorated in Ireland since the collapse of the Celtic Tiger. The anomalous situation has arisen, and is visible to all, of hundreds of people on the streets at night, several hundreds of evictions of home owners who are unable to pay the enormous monthly repayments associated with more extravagant times and hundreds of "ghost estates" lying empty and dangerous around the country - as well as monster buildings like Apollo House also lying empty and unused.It was in these circumstances that Apollo House was occupied last week.
I visited the occupation on Friday and my picture with poster stating my 100% support for the occupation appeared in the Irish Times on Saturday.. Due to new EU rules, unfortunately I may not reproduce it here.
Tomorrow the group are facing a case in the High Court where an order is being sought to remove the homeless and their champions/protectors from Apollo House. Developers want to use the building instead for "much needed office space".
I predict great public anger if this action is successful.
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Oops! The picture has appeared not once but twice. Apologies for the mistake.
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