Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said that measures introduced by government will prevent people from becoming homeless, after a prominent campaigner warned that Ireland faced a “tsunami of misery”.
Fr Peter McVerry also said the ending of the temporary moratorium on no-fault evictions is the “worst decision” the Government has made.
More than 4,300 notices to quit were recorded in the final three months of 2022, the latest figures from the Residential Tenancies Board show.
This compares with 4,741 notices to quit issued between July and September while the data for the first three months of 2023 has yet to be released.
“We have a tsunami of misery coming down the road,” he said.
“We’re talking about tens of thousands of people who are going to be put out of their homes at a time when emergency homeless accommodation is absolutely packed,” he added.
The founder of Housing First provider The Peter McVerry Trust, Fr McVerry predicted a “drip feed of heart-wrenching stories” in the coming weeks.
“This is the worst decision that this government has taken in its lifetime and is going to cause untold misery,” he added.
In response to Mr McVerry’s warnings, Mr Martin said that he believed the measures and additional resources introduced by government “will prevent people from becoming homeless”.
Speaking to reporters at an event in Dublin, he said: “That will be the focus of government and the Minister and his team have a special unit to liaise with county managers and city managers to make sure that the Tenant in Situ Scheme is adhered to is correctly.”
Fr McVerry has previously claimed Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien wanted to extend the eviction ban, but was overruled by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, an allegation denied by Mr Varadkar.
Speaking to RTE Radio One’s Today with Claire Byrne, Fr McVerry stood by the comment but said he could not produce evidence as he could not reveal his sources.
“The discussion as far as I’m concerned ends here. I’m saying one thing, the Government are saying another, andT we can’t go any further,” he said.
“I can understand why the Taoiseach is denying it, this is the most controversial, I think the worst, decision this government has made in its lifetime.”
Rental properties
In response to this claim, Mr Martin said that Mr O’Brien’s view was “as the Government’s view was, that continuing with the ban would have made things worse”.
“We want more rental properties into the market. We need more rental properties into the market.
“We need to encourage new properties, and we need to hold what we have in the market.
“The view and the advice received by the Department of Housing was that if we kept the ban going, that would result in a continuing exodus of landlords from the market.
“It’s a very fundamental economic point and if you ask anyone in the opposition, as I have in the Dáil over the last three weeks, ‘do you believe we should have an indefinite ban on evictions?’, and all the opposition parties will say, ‘no, we don’t believe we should have an indefinite ban’.
“Then you’re down to timing, and you’re down to the length of time for a ban. And even Sinn Féin acknowledges that you can’t transform the housing situation in six months.
“I think there’s been a degree of disingenuous positioning by the opposition on this and a degree of dishonesty by the opposition parties in respect of the eviction ban.”
Mr Martin added: “Fr McVerry may have had sources. I’m just clarifying the point of that that that’s not what happened. Let’s not make a big deal about it.”
