Claims that Taoiseach overruled Minister for Housing on extending eviction ban strongly denied

Claims that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar overruled the Minister for Housing on extending the eviction ban have been strongly denied.

Homelessness campaigner Fr Peter McVerry made the claim on South East Radio on Monday morning, telling the station that the Government had made an “appalling decision” in allowing the ban to lapse.

“My understanding is that the Minister for Housing wanted to extend the ban and was acting in preparation for extending the ban,” Fr McVerry said.

“But he was overridden by the Taoiseach and that’s why there was no preparation made during the five-month ban for mitigating the effects of this.”

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On Monday afternoon, a spokeswoman for the Taoiseach said: “This claim is 100 per cent incorrect and without any foundation.” Later on Monday, a spokesman for the Department of Housing said Mr O’Brien firmly believes the decision to lift the ban is “the correct decision”.

“The Minister has said this consistently and there is no question of him being overruled as suggested.”

The spokesman said 734 adults and 346 families exited homelessness in the last quarter of 2022. Meanwhile, social housing supply increased during the ban, and there were 3,264 Housing Assistance Payment tenancies created.

“The Government did use the period of the moratorium to increase social housing supply and emergency accommodation,” the spokesman said, adding that 6,000 new social homes were delivered in the last quarter of 2022 and 1,532 local authority homes were refurbished in the same period.

Pointing to new measures promised by Government, the spokesman said: “A workshop was held last week with all local authority housing teams and NGO partners regarding the supports available to affected persons and the new measures decided by Government. The department are ready to assist local authorities, the DRHE (Dublin Region Homeless Executive) and our NGO partners in any way necessary.”

Fr McVerry told South East Radio that he has “never been so angry” about the decision, and questioned why legislation giving effect to some of the mitigating measures envisaged by the Government to soften the blow of ending the ban had not been ready for its lifting.

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“The irony is that the very same day that the eviction ban was to end, the [is] Government going on holidays for two weeks and can’t pass any legislation. I mean, I’m just, as I say, so angry,” he said.

He also accused the Coalition of ending the ban because the local and European elections are coming up in 2024. “And they didn’t want all this fallout to happen a few months before the elections,” Fr McVerry said. “So they wanted to get it out of the way by ending the eviction ban and hope that the people’s anger will have subsided in 12 months time when the elections are coming up.”

Pressed on the source of his claim, Fr McVerry said he would not reveal the source of his information but would stand over it. He said he had “a lot of time” for Mr O’Brien and praised measures he has put in place on social housing.