MEMBERS of the Solidarity party are calling on Limerick City and County Council to make a compulsory purchase order on a vacant building on one of the main approaches to the city centre.
The group held a demonstration outside the former Dunnes Stores building on Sarsfield Street on Tuesday to call on the local authority to purchase the vacant site for development.
“We’re outside the old Dunnes [Stores] building which is on Sarsfield Street; it’s actually been vacant for ten years here in Limerick,” Seónaidh Ní Shíomóin, Solidarity City West candidate said.
“On the housing list at the minute in Limerick, there are four and half thousand people waiting on accommodations. So we’re taking direct action today, we’re calling on Limerick County Council to make a compulsory purchase order on this building, where it could be turned into social and affordable housing,” the Solidarity local election candidate said.
Ní Shíomóin explained this would be the first action taken by the group, as they plan to hold similar demonstrations at other vacant properties throughout the city.
“Unfortunately, while we’ve been here in the last twenty minutes, it’s actually mostly homeless people coming up to us at the stall, and people who are staying in the hotels around the corner.
“There’s a woman around the corner with a baby in the buggy asleep. She says that she can’t go back to her hotel until a certain time. There are so many harrowing stories. And direct action needs to be taken, and that’s what Solidarity intends to do,” she told the Limerick Post.
