UPDATE: Venue Change and Statement

A chairde,

Hope you’re all safe and doing okay after last night’s horrific events in Dublin City. The union has prepared a statement which follows below. It expresses our full solidarity and support to everyone who was and will be affected by what happened, and reflects on how we must move forward, constructively and collectively.

Firstly, to note, there has been a late change to the venue for tomorrow’s Public Housing and Organising training day. It will now take place in the Teachers’ Club on Parnell Square in Dublin 1. It will still begin at midday and run until 6pm. You can find a Maps pin for the new location HERE.

If you can, please register your attendance on Eventbrite.

If you’re travelling from outside Dublin and would like your travel costs reimbursed please send me an email with the details and I will organise that on Sunday or early next week.

Statement on the Events of November 23rd, 2023

CATU Ireland commends the power of ordinary people who were able to come together in the face of a tragedy and support each other, not those who seek to divide us and offer nothing but violence.

CATU Ireland would like to send our wholehearted solidarity to the students, parents, and teachers affected by the horrific attack outside Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire on Parnell Square in Dublin. We hope those who were injured both physically and psychologically make a full recovery.

We are appalled by the violent attacks orchestrated by the far right directed at people in their places of work, their hotel rooms, or on the street. In particular the attacks on migrants and people of colour across the city is a truly horrifying reflection of racism and white supremacy in Ireland.

CATU was built through community organising in the heart of Dublin, as well as previous struggles around housing in the city. The north inner city is a microcosm of multiple governments’ failures on housing and public services. People share rooms in bunk beds in tenements while landlords and vulture funds profit, social housing stock rots, and people are left in cramped emergency accommodation. Lack of decent housing and public services means people fight for what little space that exists. This has created the perfect circumstances for the events of last night.

Far right agitators capitalised on the horrific attack yesterday afternoon, rushing to target the perpetrator and promote an unsourced narrative regarding his nationality to further their racist aims. Messages and voice notes spread targeting migrants, asylum seekers, the Roma community and others were used to rally people into the city centre. The north inner city is incredibly diverse and the cynical worldview of the far right has ignored the way their riot impacted those who they claim to protect.

Not only was the attacker stopped by a Brazilian delivery driver; the Gaelscoil community itself is made up of students, staff, and parents from a wide variety of backgrounds. Many would have been made incredibly unsafe by the violence last night. The attacks against emergency services, the same services who were first responders at the crime scene, bus and Luas drivers, retail staff, and commuters further shows the hypocrisy of the far right who claim to defend women, children, and their community.

Finally, the attacks on accommodation represented the most worrying development last night, both in the city centre and the suburbs. CATU has many members in Direct Provision and in other emergency accommodations, and the union as a whole stands together with migrants and people of colour facing the full brunt of the far right’s hatred.

The only solution to the problems plaguing working-class Ireland is through organising against government policies regarding housing, healthcare, and public services in solidarity, not by burning neighbours out of homes.

The union as a whole supports our local CATU branch's continued work in the Dublin 1 area challenging evictions and slum conditions in both public and private housing.

Ní neart go chur le chéile.

In Solidarity,

Naoise Faogáin
National Administrator
Community Action Tenants Union - CATU Ireland
www.catuireland.org