Strong cross-party support for expansion of State scheme to buy properties from landlords

There is strong cross-party support for the significant expansion of a scheme where the State buys homes from landlords to avoid a sudden spike in homelessness after the eviction ban expires on March 31st.

The tenant-in-situ scheme is one of a number of key measures advanced by the Government to mitigate the impact the end of the eviction ban from April will have on the poorest households. Despite Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien setting a target of buying 1,500 properties from landlords this year, the take-up has been low. The Irish Times reported on Friday that only 13 homes, out of more than 400 offered to Dublin local authorities by landlords, were bought in recent months under the scheme.

Over the weekend, Government Ministers accepted that the implementation of the scheme had fallen well short of expectations.

“It is very disappointing to date,” said Kieran O’Donnell, Minister of State at the Department of Housing. Speaking on RTÉ Radio over the weekend, he said that Mr O’Brien had written to local authorities urging them to buy houses where the tenant could remain renting the property.

While Opposition parties – and some Government TDs – continued to roundly criticise the decision to end the eviction ban, there was growing consensus across all parties that the tenant-in-situ programme should be reviewed and expanded to avoid vulnerable households being made homeless later this year.

[ Low uptake of tenant-in-situ scheme as house purchases set to miss 1,500 target ]

Opposition parties, the chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Housing and Local Government, and a senior Green Party minister have all suggested that the scheme be extended to allow Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) to purchase homes from departing landlords to either continue renting to existing tenants or to convert into cost-rental properties.

Sinn Féin spokesman on housing Eoin Ó Broin has written to Mr O’Brien suggesting a role for AHBs in purchasing property for cost rentals and for the tenant-in-situ scheme. He said that with the correct financing, it could allow State bodies to purchase up to 2,000 homes this year. He said an additional 1,000 homes could be provided, mainly in the form of modular units, if the Government utilised the same emergency powers it used during the Covid-19 pandemic, and applied them to expedite planning and procurement processes.

Similarly, Cian O’Callaghan of the Social Democrats said reports that Minister for Finance Michael McGrath was considering tax incentives to keep smaller landlords in the market would be focused on managing existing supply rather than generating new supply. He said new measures were needed immediately to ramp up the tenant-in-situ scheme and increase supply. “We are not seeing anything new happening at the moment,” he said.

The Committee on Housing will convene a meeting immediately after St Patrick’s week to discuss tenant-in-situ purchases and has invited local authorities, Threshold, the Rental Tenancies Board, and the department to respond to reports on the low uptake of the scheme.

[ Why is the eviction ban being lifted and how damaging could this be for tenants? ]

Mr Matthew said the one of the issues it would prioritise for discussion was the purchase by AHBs of properties with a view to converting them to cost rental.

Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman said his party had argued for AHBs to be allowed to offer exiting landlords market rate to purchase their properties to allow for rental, or cost-rental, arrangements.

Defending the ending of the eviction ban on RTÉ's The Week in Politics, he said: “We have to move away from short-term sticking plaster solutions to long-term solutions.”

Speaking on the same programme, Aontú TD Peadar Tóibín said the Green Party had “hoisted the white flag of surrender” on the evictions ban, and had not published any mitigation plans that would have an impact.