GE2024... Housing crisis the priority for PBP - Lynch

Navan man, Finbar Lynch, is who is running as a People Before Profit candidate in Meath West says the housing crisis is central to his party's campaign.

Lynch, who works in the public sector, says he experienced the housing crisis himself while in college and living and working in Dublin when he lived in seven different places over a nine to ten year period.

"I became politically active when the housing movement started and during the marriage referendum.

"I am being realistic. I am not expecting to get elected this time, but I hope to bring the voice of a socialist alternative to the constituency.

"We commit to bringing in rent controls to reduce rents and to ban evictions. We would use the Apple tax to capitalise a state construction company to directly build at least 35,000 social and affordable homes per year - homes that are urgently needed.

"Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have ruled us for 100 years and they have left us with rent and house prices that are at record levels and unprecedented homelessness; endless hospital waiting lists and the highest childcare costs and cost of living in Europe.

"The general election provides an important opportunity to begin building another Ireland. An Ireland that fulfils the right to housing with social and affordable housing for all; that provides universal access to high quality public services, free at the point of delivery; an Ireland where care is provided for those who need it; and that takes radical climate action to improve people’s lives and cut emissions. We need another Ireland that reasserts our neutrality and gives real solidarity to the people of Palestine.

"There is a momentum for a socialist alternative, our message is vote Left and transfer Left," he says.