TÁNAISTE MICHEÁL MARTIN has ruled out reintroducing the ban on no-fault evictions this winter. 

The eviction ban to prevent tenants from being evicted during last winter if their landlords wanted to sell the property or have relatives move in was lifted in March.

While the ban was in place, tenants who stopped paying rent could still be evicted as this did not qualify as a no-fault eviction.

Over the past number of months, there have been repeated calls from opposition to re-introduce the ban. 

Speaking today, as the latest Department of Housing figures revealed that 12,847 people were living in emergency accommodation in July, Martin ruled out re-introducing the eviction ban this upcoming winter. 

He said reintroducing the ban “would do more harm than good”.

“I think the pressing issue is to … slow down the exodus from the rental market,” the Tánaiste said, adding that it is “having a detrimental impact in terms of housing availability”. 

“There’s no point in … taking a policy position like that which in our view would undermine, over the next number of years, the broader question of increasing supply,” Martin said. 

Martin said that previous eviction bans were put in place during Covid-19 and following the energy emergency as a result of the war in Ukraine as “these were not normal times and, hence, exceptional responses were required”. 

“But over the medium time term, from a policy perspective, all of the evidence is that the pressing issue actually is how do we increase or first of all how do we retain the number of houses that are in the rental market and how can we incentivise people to go back to renting out their homes,” the Tánaiste said. 

Reacting to the homelessness figures today, Social Democrats housing spokesperson Cian O’Callaghan has said that the temporary ban on no-fault evictions “was working”.

“It resulted in the first fall in homelessness in over a year until the Government made their disastrous decision to scrap the ban,” O’Callaghan said.

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“I am again calling on the Minister for Housing to immediately reinstate the ban on no-fault evictions in order to protect people from the trauma of becoming homeless.”

Similarly, Labour leader Ivana Bacik today said: “We in Labour have repeatedly called for the reintroduction of the emergency eviction ban, we need to see this happen now to assure people that they will be kept in their homes this winter.” 

Sinn Féin’s junior spokesperson on housing Thomas Gould said that if the party was in Government it would “reinstate the eviction ban for no-fault evictions to protect renters while housing supply is increased”. 

After the eviction ban was lifted in March, 5,735 notices to quit were issued to tenants in the second quarter of the year, figures from the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) showed. 

In the second quarter, 63% of landlords (3,633) who issued the notices said they were intending to sell the rental property, the RTB data showed.