LAST UPDATE | 20 Mar 2023

MUSICIANS, ACTORS, COMEDIANS, NGOs, experts, and activists have come together in collaboration with Raise the Roof in a video calling on the Government to keep the eviction ban in place. 

The video begins with text that reads “Ireland is in the midst of the worst housing crisis since the foundation of the state. The Government is about to make things worse”. 

Fr Peter McVerry, Mario Rosenstock, Niall Breslin (Bressie), Dr Rory Hearne, the  General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions & Raise The Roof Owen Reidy and the director of the National Women’s Council, Orla Connor are among those who participated in the video.

People who will face eviction when the ban ends on 1 April are also featured.

“Hi, I’m Lisa, I’m a mother of three young boys,” one woman said.

“They’re aged 11, 7 and 4. I’m due to be evicted on the 1st of April, I’m told that I’m going to be placed into emergency accommodation with my three sons.”

Fr Peter McVerry said:

“I’m horrified at the thought that the eviction ban will be ended in a few days time. At a time when there is virtually no emergency homeless accommodation available in this whole country. We have a wave of human misery coming down the road.”

Director of Advocacy at Focus Ireland, Mike Allen said that an “unprecedented number of men, women and children” will be homeless if the eviction ban is not extended.

Dr Rory Hearne, an author and co-organiser of the #KeeptheBan video, told The Journal that the video was made due to express the “shock” many felt that the government wasn’t going to extend the ban.

“I have people contacting me every other day who are facing eviction, and they were just literally in shock. And so I contacted Dean Scurry, one of the activists involved in the Apollo House occupation in 2016 and who has connections to musicians and artists and said, ‘could we try to do something here?’”

 ”I really don’t believe government decision makers have experience of people who have had to go through losing their home, because I cannot understand how they went ahead with this decision.”

Niall Breslin said:

“It has been a challenging and chaotic few years and nobody should be evicted into homelessness. The government should keep the eviction ban in place. It’s the right thing to do.”

Government leaders met this morning ahead of a Sinn Féin motion due in the Dáil on Wednesday which would extend the ban until January of next year.

The motion adds that by choosing to end the eviction ban on 31 March, the government has “increased the stress and insecurity experienced by the 750,000 people, including working families, living in private rented accommodation”.

It’s understood that Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan intends to vote in support of the Sinn Féin motion.