The eviction ban imposed in Ireland last October will finally be lifted on April 1, 2023. However, with this ban being lifted, there are far more complications and consequences set to occur, consequences that are far more significant than landlord frustration.
Ireland during the Pandemic was very different from the Ireland we know today, which is grappling with one of the worst cost-of-living crises in Europe and a housing crisis that seems to be worsening by the day.
A ban that reduced the number of homeless during the pandemic and helped protect thousands of people from entering homelessness during the winter of 2022 with the “winter emergency period” is now set to end once again, unleashing chaos in the remainder of the housing market Ireland still has, with rent prices expected to increase as well as thousands of people entering a life on the streets, neglected and ignored by our current government.
It’s neither surprising nor unbelievable that our government continues to struggle with the thousands of undocumented homeless people, given the years of broken promises regarding affordable social housing and the condescending remarks made against renters by our own Taoiseach.
This ban’s lifting will have an impact on families and hard-working people across the nation in ways we cannot imagine, with an estimated 3000 eviction notices in backlog set to be issued on April 1st, a number far below the total number of evictions anticipated to occur in the coming months.
Leo Varadker’s patronizing and tone-deaf remarks that “one person’s rent is another person’s income” are used to defend the cost of rent in Ireland only serve to undermine any faith that tenants may have in our current government. It’s difficult to imagine how our nation will handle this ban being lifted when emergency shelters and homeless hostels are already at capacity.
The proper infrastructure for such a significant choice has simply not been established by our government. On October 5, just before the initial lifting of the eviction ban, a DRHE spokesperson claimed that emergency housing in the Dublin region operates at full capacity most nights, with nearly 8,000 people having access to emergency housing in Dublin.
It’s terrifying to think that thousands more people will be forced to use this already-scarce resource in light of these claims and statistics.
Public outrage has called for further extensions on the eviction ban, at least until our housing crisis has eased somewhat and there are possible ideas of change considering the Kenny Report, but for the moment it seems this eviction ban is undoubtedly set to be lifted and the possible consequences are unprecedented.
Cillian Murphy
Image Credit: Pixabay