LAST UPDATE | 5 Apr 2023

TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR has said that it was unnecessary for Father Peter McVerry to apologise over his assertion that Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien was overruled on the eviction ban.

Earlier this week, McVerry had said that O’Brien had sought to keep the ban in place but had been overruled by the Taoiseach, which had been refuted by both O’Brien and Varadkar in recent days.

A spokesperson for the Taoiseach previously described the claim as “100% incorrect”.

Speaking on The Neil Prendeville Show on Cork’s RedFM, McVerry apologised to Varadkar and said that his source of information may have been incorrect.

“The phrase I was given was that the Taoiseach had overridden the Minister. In light of the Taoiseach’s denial, which I accept as true, I believe that that phrase was unfortunate and inaccurate, suggesting as it does a conflict or dispute between the Taoiseach and the Minister,” McVerry said.

“Whatever the circumstances leading up to the decision to end the ban, which are now irrelevant as the decision has been made, I accept that the Minister along with the rest of the Cabinet and the Taoiseach, made the decision together to end the ban.

“This has become an unwanted distraction from the real issue, namely where are people going to go when they are evicted.”

When asked if it was both a clarification and an apology, McVerry said that it was.

Following his appearance on the radio this morning, the Peter McVerry Trust issued a statement on Twitter.

A statement from our founder Fr. Peter McVerry SJ pic.twitter.com/FQ9gIAJvwW

— Peter McVerry Trust (@PMVTrust) April 5, 2023

This evening, Varadkar said that his office had contacted McVerry’s office yesterday to “set out the facts as they happened”, adding that there was no need for him to apologise today.

“I just want to say that no apology was necessary. There have been many times in the past where I have been given false information and, in good faith, I believed it to be true and I used it in the media and then found out it wasn’t true and have had to retract on it.

“I understand how these things can happen and certainly I’m not upset about it at all.”

Varadkar said that McVerry was someone he respected a lot and that he was looking forward to meeting with his Trust again soon.

When asked if an apology had been sought by Varadkar, he said there was not and his office had only contacted McVerry to clarify his remarks were wrong.

Varadkar added that he was not involved in reaching out to McVerry.

“I wasn’t involved in these conversations, but the purpose of the conversation was a conversation to explain what the facts were.”

Notices to quit

McVerry had previously labelled the decision to end the eviction ban as the “most controversial and, I think, the worst decision the Government has made in its lifetime”.

While the row was ongoing, the Residential Tenancies Board published figures that show that more than 4,300 notices to quit were served by landlords to tenants in the last three months of 2022.

The figures show that there were 4,392 notices to quit in the last three months of 2022. Over half of these (58%) were due to landlords selling up and taking their property off the rental market.

Overall last year, there were 11,863 notices to quit issued by landlords, with the vast majority being issued in the last six months of the year.