The Residential Tenancies (Deferment of Termination Dates of Certain Tenancies) Bill 2022 has been passed by the Oireachtas. Once signed into law by the president, the incoming legislation will defer ‘no fault’ tenancy terminations that are due to occur during the coming winter months from taking effect until after 31 March 2023.
The key points of the Bill are summarised below:
Housing minister Darragh O’Brien said,
“The government is very aware of the increasing pressure on homeless services, the limited supply in the rental market and the struggles people are facing over the coming winter months…This bill’s swift passage by both Houses of the Oireachtas demonstrates our collective commitment to protecting renters during this exceptional period by deferring any ‘no fault’ tenancy terminations from taking place this winter.”
The incoming Bill has been welcomed but many have raised concerns that it is merely a temporary band-aid. Focus Ireland CEO Pat Dennigan said,
“While a no-fault eviction ban is necessary, what’s also crucial is what the Minister for Housing will do for the five months while the ban is in place to tackle the underlying problem. We need measures to radically ramp up and accelerate delivery of social and affordable housing, meaningful policies and resources deployed to tackle vacancy, and a suite of measures to incentivise landlords to stay in the market. We must avoid a repeat of what followed after the previous eviction ban during the Covid-19 lockdowns which saw a dramatic increase in homelessness when the measure was lifted.”
Figures published by the Department of Housing last Friday show the number of people who are officially homeless has risen for the 9th month in a row to 10,975. The monthly figures have also reached a new record level for the third consecutive month. According to Focus Ireland however, the monthly homeless figures are now a reflection of people only in emergency accommodation, meaning the actual number of people homeless is in fact considerably higher.
Mercy Law Resource Centre (MLRC) has reported an increase of more than 180 per cent in queries from people who have been refused access to emergency homeless accommodation. The independent law centre received over 2,000 phone calls in 2021 and assisted 503 individuals and families at risk of homelessness, according to its annual report launched last Thursday by Father Peter McVerry.
Aoife Kelly-Desmond, managing solicitor at MLRC, said, “The only way to truly deal with the housing crisis is to have sufficient housing supply that meets the varied needs of everyone in society. MLRC believes we must move toward a rights-based approach to housing to put a stop to the entrenched housing crisis and prevent it reoccurring in the future.”
As President Higgins reminded the people of Ireland in his impassioned speech earlier this year, “It isn’t a crisis anymore, it’s a disaster”. It is time for the Government to develop robust long-term housing policy to address this national disaster.