The activists and celebrities who took over a vacant Dublin building will be faced with legal action from its current owners, it emerged yesterday.
Apollo House, previously owned by Nama and currently in receivership, was taken over on Thursday night through a collaboration between the Irish Housing Network and the Home Sweet Home Group, both of which work with homeless people.
The groups claim that the government is not doing enough to tackle the homelessness problem. Dublin city council recently decided to allocate 230 extra beds for emergency accommodation, 165 of which were made available last week.
A spokeswoman for Mazars, the firm in charge of the building’s receivership, said last night that they were legally obliged to protect and secure the property.
“The illegal occupation of the building, which is not suitable for living accommodation, presents serious insurance, health and safety issues which we cannot take responsibility for,” she said. “The current occupiers are trespassing on private property and we are asking them to leave with immediate effect. In the circumstances we have no option but to refer the matter to our legal advisors to pursue the appropriate course of action.”
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It is understood that there were ten people residing in Apollo House as of yesterday evening. Rough sleepers will be referred to the building through soup kitchen volunteers around the city.
The occupants have taken over a number of the building’s ten floors and are looking to accommodate at least 30 people as soon as possible.
Michael Flynn, the business owner known locally as “Mattress Mick”, donated 30 mattresses to the building.
The Home Sweet Home Group includes a number of Irish celebrities such as the film director Jim Sheridan, the singer-songwriter Hozier and the musicians Glen Hansard and Damien Dempsey.
“We are involved in an act of civil disobedience,” Hansard told The Late Late Show on RTE last night. “I call upon the very spirit of the Irish people to look at this. It is an illegal act. We have taken a building that essentially belongs to the people of Ireland and that has been lying empty. What we are trying to do is get a national conversation started.”
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A number of politicians came out in support of the occupation during the Dail debate on rent yesterday including Anne Rabbitte, the Fianna Fail spokeswoman for children, who wept when she said: “That’s the social conscious in me”. Ms Rabbitte was referring to whether the government should supply heat and electricity to the building for Christmas.
The scene outside Apollo House last night was lively as vans full of supplies arrived and were unloaded outside the large iron gates. Groups of women carried boxes of toilet paper and toothpaste along with sealed “next day delivery” packages which appeared to be filled with clothes.
Some volunteers assumed security roles as they rebuffed pleas to be let inside by members of the press.
Rosie Leonard, a spokeswoman for the Irish Housing Network, said that the aim was to provide people with a home rather than just a bed.
“A lot of hostels operate on strict in/out time rules but we want to create a place people feel they can stay and hang around in,” she said. “The atmosphere inside is very peaceful at the moment and everyone is just happy to be someplace warm. We are drinking lots of tea and chatting to each other.”
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At last count there were 142 people sleeping rough in Dublin city centre.
Ms Leonard said that while there were currently enough bed spaces to accommodate them in emergency hostels, there was no guarantee that the number of homeless people would not increase.
“There could easily be another ten people homeless by Monday and the vacant space in the Apollo House should be a welcome addition to the beds provided by the government,” she said.
It is unclear how the activists were able to enter the premises on Thursday evening but gardai were called to the scene and determined that the incident was peaceful and no further action was necessary.
Apollo House, built in 1969, was formerly a Department of Social Protection building. It was owned by Nama until 2014 when the agency appointed Mazars to help with the sale. A spokesman for Nama said that since it did not own the building any issues arising were not for it to answer.
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It was scheduled to be demolished earlier this year in order to facilitate the construction of a modern office buildin but the plans were put on hold due to the impact that the development would have on the Luas Cross City, Dublin’s new tram line.