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A MEMO WILL be brought to Cabinet today to ban evictions for the six-week period of Level 5 restrictions due to kick in later this week, Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien has said.
The legislation that will go before TDs and Senators will allow for a reactivation of the evictions ban if restrictions come into effect again in the future.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, O’Brien also said his colleagues Ministers Paschal Donohoe and Michael McGrath will be engaging with the main retail banks amid calls for a reintroduction of payment breaks on mortgages during the period of restrictions.
Last night, the government announced that the whole country will be move to the most stringent Level 5 of restrictions – with much of the restrictions similar to the first lockdown earlier in the year.
A 5km travel limit will be in place under Level 5, and people will only be allowed travel further for essential reasons. There will be a penalty, expected to be a fine, for those who move outside their 5km limit.
In a divergence from what was originally contained in the Living with Covid roadmap, a household can meet with one other household if it is outside, and away from their home.
‘Support bubbles’ will also be introduced for lone parents, senior citizens, and vulnerable people; this will mean a household can pair up with one other household to form one household unit.
Only essential retailers and essential services will be allowed to stay open and the government is to “improve” the Pandemic Unemployment Payment and Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme.
Another provision within it is the reintroduction of the ban on evictions that was originally put into effect at the onset of the first lockdown.
Minister O’Brien said today that measures he brought in to support renters at risk in August – when the eviction ban was lifted – were “very targeted” but the new measures today represented a “blanket ban” for the period of the restrictions.
The government had been criticised by the opposition for removing the eviction ban during the summer.
After bringing a memo to Cabinet today, he said that legislation would go before the Dáil and Seanad before the end of the week that would allow a ban on evictions to kick in “automatically” if similar restrictions were introduced again.
When asked about mortgage breaks for those who will now find themselves out of work due to the new restrictions, O’Brien said that the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform would be engaging further with the banks in the coming days.
On the same programme earlier, Sinn Féin finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty said that Minister Paschal Donohoe must “call in the banks” to support people and provide breaks on mortgage payments during the period of restrictions.
“The reality here is that people this morning are waking up full of anxiety,” Doherty said.
He said that, particularly when the Irish State has a significant stake in a number of the main banks, “it’s the least the minister for finance should be doing”.
Doherty also called for a rent freeze to be introduced to support those facing financial difficulties in the coming months.
“Of course a rent freeze should be introduced, if there was ever an argument for it, it is now,” he said.
Speaking about people in certain sectors who’ll now be out of work, Minister O’Brien said that “no decision is taken by government to shut down a sector for the sake of it”.
“If the virus continued unchecked, we would not be recovering those jobs,” he said, adding that six weeks was the “optimum time frame” for these new restrictions.
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A ban on those who can’t pay rents or are struggling but those who can and refuse to or others who due to anti social behaviour should be allowed to be evicted.
The ban should be for those trying to make an effort but need help not everyone.
@Chris Mc: And where do you suggest they move those anti-social elements if they are evicted?
@Chris Mc: Absolutely Chris, I am a landlord/lady whatever the pc term is….last lockdown the tenants stopped paying that day despite the rent being due the following day….paid dribs and drabs (total of one months rent over 6 months despite being in receipt of multiple covid payments and were approved for some emergency assistance with their rent) refused to leave when essential works were to be carried out (known about before they signed the lease) and then moved into a new accommodation, advising they would leave if we agreed to gifting them all our furniture…… Totally agree with the supports for those who genuinely need it but not a blanket ban, very very easy to give evidence that your circumstances have changed and even negotiate a lower rent but non payment, living for free just cos you can isnt a runner.
@Jack Cass: Jack if they know they could be homeless I can guarantee there would be a reduction in the antisocial behaviour. With every rule/restriction there will be people who take the piss and to be fair when I was a young one I prob would have too but surely they have learned some things from the last lockdown??
@Jack Cass: on my staycation this year I came accross a really nice cliff over the west of Ireland. A short walk off that would be my suggestion.
@Jack Cass: set up an estate somewhere in the middle of nowhere and then it’s survival of the fittest.
@Sarah Cullen: unfortunately the fact that Ireland is back to a lockdown should clearly indicate to all concerned nothing has been learnt and some people will never learn
@NotMyPresident: not sure what you have against Micky D with your profile name but anyone who has been following this worldwide will see that all other countries with the exception of sweeden with their extortionately high death rate compared to their counter parts has indeed gone back into varying degrees of lockdown. There are of course other options, like increasing hospital capacity, designating covid hospitals, people actually following the restrictions already imposed etc. but that is a whole other convo or indeed 3 convos in one paragraph. We must lockdown now or the hospitals as they are will become overwhelmed. What we dont need to do is give a free for all….people genuinely affected should get supports as needed.
Talk to the banks. What a copout!
That’s a belter of a yarn to start the day off. Talk to the banks? They have absolutely no intention of meeting with and talking to the banks. I never heard such nonsense.
What about the greedy landlord who can’t afford to pay the mortgage while the tenant lives rent free?
Get a job, so you can pay for your own mortgage for your 2nd (or multiple) homes?
@Dean: most landlords have one rental property and have a job already.
@shane mc gee:
They will lose money, just as I have lost money on my investments since the pandemic began. That’s the reality of investing, you may lose money, and that is just the reality of it.
Reward without risk nor labour is unjust.
@David Bourke: bloody big difference you can cut your losses when uyou chose private landlords have no option to just exit market
SF would bankrupt the country…. it’s always not enough.
@Rory: Any comment on other parties who have done it already? Who brought the IMF to our shores?
@Rory: FF literally did bankrupt the country, SF has never bankrupted the country. Give your head a wobble.
@Rory: Nonsense, this is a corrupt government
And always have been…do your research
Corruption and cover up all the way..expensive
Enquires, to basically make sure no consequences for the corrupted government minister’s and Td’s.
@Aaron: for the past 10 years SF have harped on about burning the bankers, in their alternate budget they wanted to borrow an extra 18 billion for the same bankers. Do they honestly think these people would lend billions to a party who said they wouldn’t pay it back?
@Chris Mc: Chris, FF literally bankrupted the country, SF hasn’t even been in government. Nothing you say has a point.
@Rory: Do you know what the word irony means, or is it totally lost on you?
@Liam Ó hAodha: That’s a big word for him
@Rory: You must have a lot of catching up to do, see last 20years for bankrupting the country…
@Aaron: give them time
@Aaron: the signed the bank bailout
@David Corrigan: mainly over paying for our public service and pensions and social welfare
We will all be together when the state pays full wages and lost revenue to all the people and businesses in Ireland.
Otherwise stop repeating fluffy useless PR soundbites.
@Isabel Oliveira: you mean other taxpayers pays for everyone. It’s not the government’s money they are spending on their HSE fiasco coverup lockdown.
@Isabel Oliveira: how do you suggest they find the money for your idea? How on earth could any country pay everyone full wages and make up for loss of revenue for every business? Perhaps you should put your ideas in a letter to Santa
@Isabel Oliveira: Full wages and lost revenue? Any suggestion on where all these billions will come from and how they will be paid back?
@Sara Davis: mary lou says its possible
@DeWitt: Mary lou said 26deg and sunny out
6 weeks and then you can be thrown out of the roof over your head. How does that O Brien sleep at night. Jesus is this for real. No hope for these people that are homeless. 6 weeks folks, yes 6 weeks and that’s what a minister on over 100K a year promises you. 6 weeks of stress,6 weeks of warmth,6 weeks of a room in a kip or a single room in a hotel. Amazing politician, he should get the Nobel prize for hard neck..
O Brien doing the tenants a favor by not making them homeless now but after Christmas. FF failed party, failed morals, failed ethics, the party that says yes to everything to stay in power. O Brien was one of the chief negotiators for FF with FG/ Greens. A happy man that never got elected to be in power in the first instance. Another trough politician.
Pause the world, and let me off!
This should of been done last week rang the bank today no help whatsoever it was like talking to a machine if I dont pay full mortgae I fall into arrears even if I pay interest only banks are winning of me because I took the break to the tune of 70 euro a month extra
These bans are a major reason why Irish mortgages holders pay the highest rates in EU. If you rent a property then you pay rent. If not then leave.
Should have engaged with banks before now, most have had 2 payment breaks now banks are saying no more. Engaged with bank a month ago, mortgage due today, rang them up they still haven’t looked at it. All in this together, I think not.
Unfortunately a lot of people have already been evicted since the last lockdown ended. As usual, renters are just an afterthought.
The Inviolability of people’s homes is a fundamental Constitutional Right too … so less drama with the landlords and ownership as most of landlords have mortgages therefore the rental property is owned by the bank until the debt is paid up
In other EU countries the government decided in March to transfer the tenants the decision of enter or not in a new period, in plain their Covid housing bills only transfer the right from landlords to tenants and this measure have been in place since March and extended in October ….. and they don’t have the housing crisis there is here …. just a system, and culture, not based in the Medieval and Mafia style management of tenancies … No Lords in this Land, the Republic of Ireland
There was still evictions being carried out the last time and the government and its agents done nothing about it.
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