January 9, 2017 View all news Young Friends of the Earth Ireland wish to express their solidarity with Home Sweet Home and the occupiers of Apollo House.YFOE campaigner Sinead Mercier said"The fact that Dublin experienced a 35% increase in homelessness in 2016 alone, as GDP rose 26% in 2015, is an appalling indictment of this Government's passivity.This disgraceful response to the crisis reveals the essential nature of neoliberalism: capitalism for the poor and the planet, and socialism for the rich. The use of NAMA to advance the wealth of finance capital and vulture funds as 7,500 people are homeless this Christmas shows clearly the nature of this Government's priorities. The state is not withdrawn from the economy but its intervention and tax base is used exclusively for the ends of finance capital that is destroying our social and environmental structures.YFOE fundamentally rejects an economy that is based on the cushioning of the few at the expense of the many, and at the expense of our planet. We welcome a national movement to better our society and our planet through people power. We all have a right to the city & to a home on earth, our common #HomeSweetHome."YFOE member Louise Fitzgerald, a campaigner from Berlin's Divestment movement, said"The huge crises we now face; societal, environmental, economic all have the same root cause - the failure of the current economic system to fulfil environmental and social needs.The challenges we have to solve seem daunting in scale, and sometimes it can seem that we are powerless to address them. The beauty of Home Sweet Home is that it demonstrates how much power ordinary people have still today to make positive change. Young Friends of the Earth stand in solidarity with Apollo House in building a life sustaining, fair and just alternative to the current system".YFOE member Triona Reid, with 7 years employment experience in homelessness services and a volunteer at Apollo House said"Home Sweet Home and the overwhelmingly positive response from the general public shows that the Irish people do not share the cruel intentions of this Government but have a innate sense of social justice. Mats on the cold hard floor of a cafeteria or forcing families long-term into hotel rooms, or people on addictions support programmes to sleep in dorm rooms with drug users is not only dangerous, but reprehensible in a wealthy society".