Ireland: Man Going to Prison for Building a House on His Own Land

This is a rules-based order.

You can’t just “build a house.” It’s a violation of the values who make us who we are.

Gript:

Dublin dad, Brendan McDonagh, has been told he should pack a bag and prepare to be jailed over a cabin he erected on land his family owns without planning permission.

McDonagh, who has a wife and two children under ten, told Gript he has now been fighting for eight years with South Dublin County Council in order to try and satisfy the planning authority that the cabin is compatible with their standards.

The council claims that the cabin is not in keeping with its development plans for the area insofar as it “does not adhere to regional planning guidelines” and that “granting retrospective planning permission would set an undesirable precedent” as well as leading to a “demand for uneconomical provision of services in the area”.

Speaking to Gript today, McDonagh explained that, although he was formally self-employed, in order to try and secure a home for his family he voluntarily gave up this status and reduced his working hours to be able to qualify for HAP as he was unable to afford private housing on his former earnings.

Describing the average cost of rent in Dublin which is currently around €2,400, he said, “That’s a whole salary for somebody after they pay their taxes.”

“You just get one wage, and then you’re relying on the other person to run the cars and the food and the bills out of their wage. Yeah. So it’s not feasible.” he said.


Brendan McDonagh and his family

He said that while he was self-employed he “wasn’t entitled to anything” in terms of help with housing or the cost of living.

He said he “can’t comply with a court order” to remove the cabin when the council has not offered him accommodation for his family, adding that although a number of SDCC councillors – including Independent Ireland Cllr. Linda DeCourci who told Gript she would be at the High Court to support him – had expressed their support for him that there had been no change from the planning authority.

Independent TD Mattie McGrath has called on the government to use a statutory instrument to give an amnesty to people like the McDonagh family who are relying on cabins and mobile homes – installed without planning permission – as housing in the midst of the housing crisis.

McGrath has called on his amnesty to be given for a period of up to ten years saying that there are many such people living in Ireland who are waiting to be “pounced on” by the local authorities.

McDonagh said that because he has not removed the remains of the cabin – which he gutted – off the land owned by his family, his barrister advised him to “pack a bag” and prepare to be sent to jail tomorrow from the hearing of his case before the High Court.

“I don’t want to bring the kids in, because then they’ll have memories of Daddy getting locked up, you know, or being threatened,” with jail.

This is why we need to spread the American ideology of democracy to Russia and China and elsewhere: we have to stop people from building houses.

Houses are heating this bitch out. If we have any hope at all of turning the earth into a solid sheet of ice to prevent the rise of swamp-ass, we have to stop houses.

People must go live in a field and sleep on the ground. That is the only solution to the dramatic rise of climate change.

Longer interview from 3 months ago