Rory Hearne: Evictions now higher than the famine, government shame

Thank you Deputy. Deputy Rory Hurd. Mícheál Máint agus Ceann Comhairle. I want to thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward the motion and I completely support what is set out in it. It's deeply, deeply frustrating and disappointing to engage with this debate again and to see the absolute lack of concern on the government's part and I will come back to this. I remember when I was engaged in campaigning against the lifting of the eviction ban after Covid, describing the government at the time as being one of the cruelest governments we've had since the foundation of the state but Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael today have managed to outdo that. The level of acceptance of evictions is just mind-blowing for me that it's just battered away as 7,000 households have been evicted in the first quarter of this year. You know the Taoiseach earlier today referred to it as churn which I thought was deeply just actually revealed what Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael think of these households. They're just churn and they don't really matter and I think that what we're seeing today in our housing crisis and situation will actually be the end of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. I think that we're looking at the point at which Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael completely abandoned any pretense at standing up for ordinary people and that you have abandoned particularly Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael always you know were kind of clear who they stood for but Fianna Fáil in particular have completely abandoned working people, ordinary people in this country and when we look back in history and people will study this period of time the comparison with the famine will be made and I have said it for quite a while now and highlighted it that we have now reached the point where evictions are as high as they were in the famine. They're not actually, you can shake your head minister, the truth, yeah I am absolutely the true unbelievable what's unbelievable is 7,000 households in the first quarter of this year being evicted and the government literally not an eyelid is bat, not an intervention made and the truth is and I've looked at it historically the figures are there a million people, a million households, sorry not a million apologies, 100,000 households, 100,000 families were evicted between 1846 and 1852, equates to between 15 to 16,000 households a year last year minister how many households were evicted? 20,000 households. Not only are we at the highest rate of evictions since the famine, we have surpassed, we are now at a rate of evictions higher than what took place during the famine and you might be familiar that was then when we were under a colonial government. This is our own government, Fianna Fáil, Fianna Gael, standing over evictions that are higher than the famine of families, of children. I met one at a door in Cabra today, side by side two houses they knocked on, one in tears because she's being evicted, nowhere to go to. She's an elderly woman, has cancer, literally says there is nowhere I can go to. The house next door overcrowding, people living in it and it is absolutely disgraceful, shameful. This government is one of the cruelest and most callous governments we have since the foundation of the state and it is incredible that Micheál Martin tarnished to get up here and talk about churn, talk about the evictions as if there's not real human beings behind it and it is absolutely disgraceful and the other side of this of course is why are house prices and rents so high? House prices and rents are so high because actually what is going on in the midst of this housing disaster is massive profiteering by developers, by investor funds, facilitated by Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael. Last year the head of Glenveig, one of Ireland's biggest developers, made three and a half million, three and a half million in his pay plus bonuses. The head of Iris Reit made over a million, a million in their salary and if we look at Iris Reit they're profiting up to the tune of half of all rent that's been paid is going directly in profit. So what's very clear is that while people are suffering from this housing crisis there are others, the ones that you are facilitating and funding are actually profiting from it at unprecedented levels. Tens of millions being made by these companies and this is what we need to reveal. That actually it's the price gouging, it's the profit gouging by the developers, by the investor funds facilitated by Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael is why people are literally being screwed onto the streets in this country because they cannot afford a home and it is utterly utterly disgraceful and we brought forward a developer transparency profits bill but of course you wouldn't put it through because you don't actually want accountability for the developers and investor funds who you're throwing hundreds of millions at. And when we look at it, when we look at housing in this country now and we see Galway City for example, rents 800 a month in November 2019, 800 a month. Now two and a half thousand a month. Rents have absolutely gone through the roof. Similarly in Dublin we can see it, similarly in my own constituency and what does this government do allowed rents rise even further. Breaking commitments and of course one of the commitments that the Tánaiste and Taoiseach made very clearly was that with your new rental rules no existing tenants would be affected by the new rules but what the truth is in the reality, talk to the tenants in Ayres Reid, our biggest landlord, they are being told in rent share situations they can't replace the tenant who leaves, leaving the existing tenant paying the full rent and that tenant of course is facing the situation where they won't be able to stay, they will leave, it'll be recorded as voluntary, it's not, but then Ayres Reid can charge market rent to the new tenants who are in there, bypassing your your change which said that where there's no fault eviction you can't increase the rent to market rent. So what are you doing Minister? I wrote to the Minister for Housing last week about it, nothing done about it, no one has said anything, Ayres Reid are literally forcing tenants out so that they can get higher rents, bypass your rules, silence from the government, silence on it, you've no problem with that, it's just incredible, it is absolutely incredible and I will come back to the issue of evictions and the famine and homelessness because I will repeat it again and again, for us in the Social Democrats, for me it is absolutely disgraceful and shameful that we are allowing higher levels of evictions take place than took place in the famine and not only are we standing over it, we're facilitating it by new rental rules that incentivize landlords to evict. Minister, I know you've been around, you understand what's going on, how do you accept that families, children are being torn away from their communities, are literally crying themselves to sleep? That's what people are telling us, they're literally crying themselves to sleep, mothers, fathers, because they don't know where they're going to go. I just cannot get my head around how you don't put in place a ban on no fault evictions. The Tánaiste, the Taoiseach get up here and say we care about this country, there's no monopoly of who has compassion in this Dáil, but you know what, there is a complete absence of compassion from Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael, from the Tánaiste and Taoiseach and I will name it, it is absolutely shameful, it is shameful that the Taoiseach of this country comes in here and says basically higher evictions in the famine are just churn, but it gets even worse. What has the Taoiseach done in the last few months, just as the Tánaiste has, they've started to turn the attention on immigrants, blame immigrants for the housing crisis, but it's not really surprising when we look at the Taoiseach's mentor Bertie Ahern and what he said on the doors, that nasty comment and it just revealed how politically callous Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael are. The shift, most privileged people in this country turn around and because of your failures blame the most vulnerable people in this country, who most vulnerable people fleeing refuge, who come here, who are working in our nursing homes, working in our care homes and it is really really disgusting, I have to say, disgusting to see the Taoiseach stand up here when homelessness is raised with him now and say, ah homelessness is complicated, it's not the same as it was. So what is it Micheál then, what's different about it, what's different about the families in emergency accommodation now than five years ago and of course what he's saying is it's because there's immigrants there, because there's migrants as part of them, they're not the Irish citizens. Well do you know what, would you say the same to the people, the Irish people in England, who can't afford to pay the rent or who are evicted, should they not be entitled to emergency accommodation? The people who are in homelessness, in emergency accommodation in this country are homeless, they are without homes, they have been evicted predominantly from the private rental sector but instead what do we see from Fianna Fáil, everything to get attention and blame off yourselves and it is just deeply deeply saddening and frustrating that we have a government that stands over the highest evictions since the famine and acts as if this is okay, this is tolerable and again heard Taoiseach today say it, well and the Minister Cummins said it in the outline of response, oh there were seven thousand households evicted but there was new tenancies created. No acknowledgement that in that seven thousand evictions, the stress, the anxiety, the upset, the trauma, how it leaves on people, on children. I hope you and your family never faces eviction, I hope the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach never, but sure when do they ever, have any sense of what it is to be forced out of their home and lose their home and actually it's one of the things that motivates me because I did have to leave my home when I was a private renter as a child and it has stayed with me for my life and I will stand up for those people, they should not be evicted and you're a disgrace. Thank you Deputy, Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett.