What planet is the Taoiseach living on?
THERE are now just six days until the eviction ban is lifted and thousands more people become homeless.
The stress and anxiety this looming deadline is causing, in homes all over the country, is extraordinary.
Workers are unsure how they will be able to commute to their jobs; parents are unsure if their children will have to change schools; elderly people are contemplating having to leave the only home they have known for decades; and, most importantly of all, workers and families don’t know where they will be sleeping from April 1.
On Friday, the Taoiseach tried to downplay the significance of the Government, supported by a number of Independent TDS, voting to increase homelessness. He said evictions only happen after a court process and judges would be very reluctant to force people to leave their homes with no alternatives.
What planet is the Taoiseach living on? Does he realise there are currently nearly 12,000 people in homeless accommodation – the highest number in the history of the State?
Does he know the majority of homeless families had rented privately before losing their homes? These families lost their homes after they were issued with notices to quit. The Taoiseach may not like to use the word “eviction” – but that is what happening, on a scale we have not seen in generations. The Taoiseach should also know the main route out of homelessness – moving into private rental accommodation with Housing Assistance Payment – has collapsed. In January, Dublin City Council warned the number of families “moving to HAP from emergency accommodation is the lowest in at least five years”. Last October, for instance, just six families in Dublin exited homelessness into the private rental sector with the assistance of HAP. That month, there were 1,120 homeless families in Dublin, with more than 2,500 children. Once families become homeless, there is no easy route out. It can take years to find a new home – and that delay is getting longer and longer. This has particularly serious consequences for children, for whom there can be life-long negative consequences. This is not just a crisis in Dublin. The same desperate situation is replicated all over the country. This is why the decision to lift the eviction ban during this period of record homelessness – causing a further huge surge in homelessness – is so reckless and damaging.
Families trapped in this nightmare have nowhere to go. The availability of private rental accommodation has fallen to a historic low and most of what is available is extortionate.
House prices have never been higher meaning most ordinary workers have no hope of buying a home. Even emergency accommodation is maxed out and unavailable.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The eviction ban has been in place for nearly six months.
The Government was supposed to spend that time putting in place measures to prevent workers and families from becoming homeless.
Instead, they did nothing – and then tried to present some half-baked proposals, cobbled together at the last minute, as “a safety net for renters”. A safety net is supposed to be in place before you fall. If it’s not, and it doesn’t catch you, then it is functionally useless – like most of the Government’s so-called mitigation measures. There are solutions to this crisis the Government could adopt. There are more than 16,000 properties in the short-term letting sector, many of which would move to the longterm rental market if existing regulations were actually enforced.
There are at least 100,000 vacant homes all over the country that would come back into use if we had an effective vacant homes tax in place.
These are short-term solutions to immediately boost the supply of housing. In the medium to long-term, what we really need is the Government to finally do its job – and use State land to build tens and thousands of social, affordable and cost-rental homes.
No Government, in the history of the State, has ever voted to increase homelessness – and all of the human misery and suffering that will cause.
It is not too late for the Government to reverse this shameful decision. If they don’t, I believe they will come to regret it – but, by then, it will be too late to undo the damage.
The Government will face two crunch votes in the Dail this week. A vote will take place on Wednesday on a new legally binding private members’ bill in a last-ditch bid to extend the eviction ban, while a motion of no confidence in the Government is the following day.
The same desperate situation is replicated over the country