LAST UPDATE | 7 Mar 2023
TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR has defended the decision to end the eviction ban at the end of the month, saying it was in the “overall public interest”.
The plan was formally announced by Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien this afternoon, with the ban to end on 31 March as initially planned, however he has said that there will be no “cliff edge” for families who may be affected by the decision.
The decision comes despite significant pressure from both the opposition and Green Party backbencher Neasa Hourigan for the ban to be extended.
Speaking during Leaders’ Questions this afternoon, the Taoiseach defended the decision made by the Cabinet this morning, saying that the ban had failed to reduce homelessness.
“There are pros and cons but we made the decision which we believe is in the overall public interest,” Varadkar said.
“We believe, on balance, that it’s in the public interest to do this, one, because it wasn’t bringing down homelessness, two, because it was creating a whole new form of homelessness – people not able to move back into their own homes, properties they owned, and third, it would make fewer properties available in the future, thus making rental properties less available and pushing up rents further.”
Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on Housing, Eoin Ó Broin, hit out at Varadkar and the Government for making the decision, saying that it would lead to an increase in both rough sleeping and families attending at Garda stations looking for somewhere to sleep.
He said that the decision to end the ban on evictions at the end of the month was "cruel and heartless"
— Tadgh McNally (@TadghMcN) March 7, 2023
In response, Taoiseach @LeoVaradkar said that the Govt believes the decision was "in the overall public interest" and that the ban was not effective in reducing homelessness
“From April, we are not only facing an increase in people in emergency accommodation, we are facing a rise in rough sleeping and under Tusla’s rules, the prospect of families with children being referred to Garda stations for a safe place to sleep,” O’Broin said.
O’Brien brought a detailed memo to Cabinet this morning, when the Government discussed the plan and other responses to the housing crisis.
Speaking about the decision this afternoon, O’Brien said that the plan to lift the moratorium at the end of the month did not need to be re-assessed.
“The eviction moratorium was brought in as a short-term measure and will end as originally planned on the 31 March,” he said.
“There will, it’s important to say, be no cliff edge end to this moratorium period. It will be phased out until the 18 June of this year.
“It didn’t need to be reassessed given the impact this will have on the long-term by potentially storing up larger problems.
“I and Government must be conscious that only short-term benefit has to be assessed to see whether it will be outweighed by long-term further damage to the private rental sector.”
The minister claimed that the ban has not had the impact of reducing homelessness, though he added that it had the effect of stabilising the situation.
Focus Ireland has stated that “the failure of the Government to listen to homeless organisations about the reality facing front line services is deeply worrying”.
The charity’s director of advocacy Mike Allen said: “There are virtually no free beds in emergency homeless accommodation and all local authorities are facing huge problems in increasing supply of emergency shelter.”
“The Government has essentially decided to live with a level of street homelessness which has never been considered tolerable before,” he said.
Earlier, O’Brien’s Government colleague and Green TD Neasa Hourigan said the coalition leaders’ plan to end the eviction ban is “completely the wrong decision”.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne this morning, Dublin Central TD Neasa Hourigan said: “The Eviction Ban was a sticking plaster so that we could do radical surgery, but the Housing Minister and the three party leaders haven’t done that.”
She added: “Next month, I will be sitting in constituency clinics, and there will be mammies coming in to me saying, ‘I am being evicted through no fault of my own. This is no fault evictions and I am now going to have to move, my children are going to have to be removed from their school and go somewhere else’.
“And there are no more hotel rooms in Dublin centre, there are no more B&Bs, I genuinely do not know where we are going to put people.”
Opposition politicians and housing activists have also condemned the move, with Sinn Féin’s housing spokesperson warning that the coalition leaders’ plan to end the eviction ban will see more people becoming homeless from next month.
Earlier today, Ó Broin told RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland this morning that “we’re at a situation where not only very very significant numbers of people – single people, couples, families with children and pensioners – lose their homes and become homeless in April, May and June, but our emergency accommodation is also in many cases full, so they won’t even have emergency accommodation to go to”.
When I use the words cruel and heartless, I don’t use them lightly.
“I’ve never argued for an indefinite ban on evictions but I argued last year that a temporary ban on evictions, accompanied by a series of emergency measures to prevent people coming becoming homeless and increased the supply of social and affordable housing was required. The government didn’t do the second of those.”
This morning, People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett lashed the Government for their decision, labelling it as “inhuman” and “shameful”.
“The Government decision to lift the emergency eviction ban is an absolutely inhuman, shameful decision that is going to inflict cruel hardship on thousands of families, individuals and worst of all children and elderly and vulnerable people,” Boyd Barrett said.
“It really suggests that the Government just don’t care about people who are faced with the terrifying prospect of homelessness when there is nowhere else for them to go.”
He added that the Government was “dancing to the tune of property developers and speculators and corporate landlords”, while Solidarity TD Mick Barry said that people faced with eviction should not comply with the order.
“Don’t just walk away from your property, just don’t walk away into homelessness. Stand your ground, refuse to go,” Barry said.
“It’s better to break the law than to break the poor.”
Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy said that she was concerned that the existing housing and homelessness crisis was going to get worse with the lifting of the ban.
In particular, she criticised the Government for not delivering since the ban was initially introduced in October.
“What has really been disappointing is since October – when this was introduced – and now, really there has been very little in the way of practical delivery on things that could make a difference,” Murphy said.
“It has been time where the Government have been quite passive about waiting to see what would happen but the reality of it is now, we’re at a cliff edge and for some people this is very imminent.”
Labour leader Ivana Bacik also described the decision as a “backward step” and “regrettable”.
She claimed that statements by senior figures in recent weeks, which said that the Government was taking legal advice on the matter, had led to the impression among renters that the ban would be extended.
“It’s really regrettable, really disappointing to see the Government taking this approach,” Bacik told RTÉ’s News at One programme.
“You say it was expected, but in fact, the Government had been saying for some weeks now, in response to questions for me and other opposition leaders, they had been saying that they were seriously considering an extension of the ban, that they were taking legal advice, that they would be coming back before Patrick’s Day.
“They made that commitment, and I think that was creating a sense that there was going to be some extension of the ban.”
Homelessness campaigner Fr Peter McVerry said “on their own head be it” when asked about the coalition leaders’ planned lifting of the eviction ban last night,
Speaking to RTÉ’s Upfront with Katie Hannon, McVerry said that “clearly, the ban on evictions is preventing people from becoming homeless.”
“I’ve been a very strong advocate for this ban to be extended and I’m very disappointed that it’s not,” he said.
McVerry said landlords are exiting the market because “house prices are almost at a peak and they want to cash in on their assets”.
“The ban on evictions would affect very, very few landlords. Most landlords are not planning to evict or are not planning to sell up, so I don’t accept that rationale,” he said.
Focus Ireland chief executive Pat Dennigan has argued that lifting the ban would amount to “turning on the tap into homelessness and making an absolutely shameful situation even worse”.
Addressing a half-day seminar on housing, Dennigan added: “We’re not going to put a timeline on that – we’re not going to say for three, six, nine months or even a year – we believe we can’t put an arbitrary timeline on the extension, but rather we must extend the ban until we have tackled the conditions that made it essential in the first place.
“We must use the breathing space of the ban to provide solutions.”
"On their own head, be it" - @PMVTrust
— Upfront with Katie Hannon (@RTEUpfront) March 6, 2023
Fr. Peter McVerry reacts to the news that tomorrow the Government will discuss ending the evictions ban at the end of the month #RTEUPFRONT #evictionban pic.twitter.com/JRTXuJoDDx
Likewise, CEO of housing charity Threshold John-Mark McCafferty said ending the ban “will mean increased homelessness in the short term”.
Speaking to RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland, McCafferty said that “we know that there are few options in the housing market for families and individuals who are threatened with a notice of termination”.
“The problem is there’s very few places or nowhere for them to go in terms of the wider housing market. We’re also very much aware of the limits at local authority level in terms of emergency accommodation, which is floor that’s supposed to be the safety net where families and individuals turn to when there are no more housing options out there,” he said.
My question is to Government is what do we advise people and families about those options when the notice of terminations start to become triggered from April and May onwards?
“We understand a moratorium can’t last forever. Moratorium aren’t an ideal solution in a properly functioning housing market. The problem is, this is not a properly functioning housing market, especially in the private rented sector.”
Additional reporting by Lauren Boland and Tadgh McNally
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