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‘It was a nightmare’: The landlord who evicted a tenant over complaints of CCTV in the kitchen

An Irish Times investigation sheds new light on practices of controversial landlord Marc Godart

A screengrab of a CCTV camera from within a property rented by Marc Godart on Dublin's Cork street.

Sun Jan 14 2024 - 08:14

Welcome to this week’s IT Sunday, a selection of the best Irish Times journalism for our subscribers.

A new investigation by The Irish Times, drawing on the accounts of a whistleblower who worked for the controversial landlord Marc Godart and some of his former tenants, sheds new light on practices within his operation and his treatment of migrants who have recently arrived in Ireland. Naomi O’Leary reports how computer engineer Salvador Chavez Morales was served an eviction notice after he complained about a CCTV camera installed in the kitchen of his Dublin rental, which employees of the letting agency could watch live from their phones.

The letting agency retained €1,146 of the savings Salvador had built up over years of work in his native Mexico and had issued him the eviction notice. When he refused to leave, the bed and door were removed from his bedroom. “It was painful, a month living on the floor. It was stressful. It was a nightmare,” he said. Salvador also shared his story with video journalist Enda O’Dowd.

On the issue of the housing crisis, in his weekend column David McWilliams writes that Ireland will not have any political peace until we fix housing: “In economic terms Ireland, until very recently, was dealing with the problems of population decline. We are now dealing with the problems of population expansion, and we don’t know what to do. For generations we grappled with the problems of economic failure, emigration, high unemployment and falling incomes. Now we must deal with the problems of success, immigration, full employment and soaring incomes.” He writes that Ireland’s inability to build homes will undermine political, social and economic solidarity “for decades to come”.

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Harbour Court, a Dublin city centre back street, was closed off to the public this week due to persistent drug use, antisocial behaviour and illegal dumping which Dublin City Council said it was unable to control. Following the closure, speculation is turning to where the alley axe might next fall, Dublin editor Olivia Kelly writes. In her article on “Dublin’s unloved lanes”, she questions whether street closures are the solution to antisocial problems.

Meanwhile, Dean Ruxton sifts through The Irish Times archive for stories of Harbour Court’s past. He finds some “murky” stories including illegal games, con artistry and a “mystery” death in 1941.

Rosita Boland examines how a plan to house male international protection applicants in a disused hotel in Ballinrobe, Co Mayo, mobilised protests, resulting in a decision to instead accommodate families and children seeking asylum. “There was an overall fear that nobody knew where these men were coming from.. It was Friday afternoon. Everything was closed. And they were meant to be arriving Monday,” one woman told her. Earlier this week, political reporter Jack Horgan-Jones wrote in his analysis that “opposition to accommodation for single men seeking asylum is, increasingly, a fact of political life in Ireland”.

Irish lawyer Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, who practises as a barrister at Matrix Chambers in London, was one of two external counsel supporting the South African legal team in its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) this week. South Africa accuses Israel of breaching the UN genocide convention in its conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza since October 7th. “The reality is that nowhere and nobody is safe in Gaza,” Ms Ní Ghrálaigh told the ICJ. Who is she and what brought her to this case?

With talk of supermarket wars and prices falling, Conor Popes examines if life really is getting cheaper for Irish consumers. “Since April 2022, The Irish Times has been tracking the price of a basket of commonly bought goods. When we started, we put the price of the basket at €78.36. The same products had climbed to €94.43 by last August, an increase of 20.5 per cent. And by late this week the price had climbed to €98.44,” he writes.

In this week’s On the Money newsletter, Joanne Hunt warns against “lifestyle creep” chipping away at your well-earned pay rise. “If you’ve reached a long hoped-for salary bracket, be careful not to ‘should’ your good fortune away,” she writes. “You might feel that someone on your pay ‘should’ be driving a different car, they should be going on a particular kind of holiday and they should definitely be past choosing between a starter or a dessert.” Sign up here to receive the newsletter straight to your inbox every Friday.

Finally, The Irish Times has a new beauty columnist. Simone Gannon, from Galway but living in Dublin, has been writing about beauty for more than a decade. In her first column she opens her bathroom cabinet to reveal an assortment of excellent Irish brands, and high and low-end skincare products.

As always, there is much more on irishtimes.com, including rundowns of all the latest movies in our film reviews, tips for the best restaurants in our food section and all the latest in sport. There are plenty more articles exclusively available for Irish Times subscribers here.

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