From a Dublin base, an anti-caste influencer grows a global audience
In less than two years, Amit Wasnik has attracted tens of thousands of online followers with his posts focused on the life and ideas of BR Ambedkar.
People who have moved to Dublin from other countries are among the most vulnerable tenants in the city, more likely to be renters, to live in overcrowded apartments, and to end up homeless.
Homelessness is likely to increase for the rest of this year, says Mike Allen, director of advocacy with Focus Ireland.
During marathon meetings last week about the next city development plan, councillors voted to keep in local policies in the draft that likely clash with national guidelines.
Faced with the prospect of rent rises, council tenants banded together to resist. CATU wants to hear from anyone who was involved back then.
None of the second round of affordable rental homes funded with help from the government’s Cost Rental Equity Loan scheme will be in the city. None of the first were either.
“The near-total dominance of this typology has adverse long-term consequences for the creation of sustainable communities,” council chief Owen Keegan has said.
In his efforts to make sure his apartment complex in Swords is secure and maintained, he’s up against a Cypriot subsidiary of a fund with more than half-a-billion euro worth of property in Ireland.
The Residential Tenancies Board has published the names of landlords it has fined or cautioned for breaking laws governing rental homes, including Propmaster Ventures.
How much of the big increases were legal?
Nobody knows how many cases are stymied when neither the tenant nor the Residential Tenancies Board can track down a landlord.
In March 2020 last year the council switched to “virtual” inspections, done by sending a checklist to landlords and double-checking with tenants.
Car-parking fees and service charges are why it looks like rents have gone up 59–85 percent in less than four years in some apartments in the south inner-city.