Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This morning I brought three different groups of tenants into the Public Gallery before addressing a question to the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Murphy. All three groups face evictions by ruthless vulture funds that have absolutely no concern for their welfare but seek to evict them in order to drive up the value of the property assets they have purchased. More than 100 individuals and families, some in Inchicore, some in Dublin 6, the Minister's own constituency, and some in my constituency, Dún Laoghaire, face evictions at the hands of these vulture funds. All the funds are using loopholes in the residential tenancies legislation in order to justify or execute these attempted evictions, loopholes which we in the Opposition have repeatedly pointed out would be and are being used by vulture funds to evict people. The loopholes relate to substantial refurbishment of property and sale of property. The latest case concerns the Dún Laoghaire residents, who face the fourth separate effort by two different vulture funds to have them evicted in the past two years. This time they think it will succeed because they have found another loophole to get around the so-called Tyrrelstown amendment, which restricts mass evictions in cases of ten or more tenants. What do these vulture funds do? They evict eight of the 11 tenants and then, in nine months' time, they can evict the other three. There used to be 21 tenants in the properties affected, but slowly the vulture funds have whittled their numbers down through insecurity, fear and anxiety. The numbers go down as the vulture funds try to get them all out. Now 50 families on Richmond Street and Grove Park, in Dublin 6, face the same, as do residents of three blocks of apartments, Emmet Manor, Emmet Court and Emmet Lodge, in Inchicore.

I asked the Minister for Housing what he would do to stop these ruthless, inhuman vulture funds - that is what they are. Let us be clear about what is at stake. They are trying to do one thing and one thing only: make people homeless to drive up the value of the assets and make profit. They do not want to be landlords and they do not care about the tenants or the kids. They just want to drive up the value of the assets. What will the Government do about this? We have put before the Government Bills to amend the Constitution to enshrine the right to housing and we have seen the House pass the Solidarity-People Before Profit anti-evictions Bill, which the Government blocks, to prevent evictions in these kinds of cases, but still the Government does nothing. It is protecting these vultures and giving them tax breaks. Michael Noonan invited them in in 2013 with a whole series of meetings and they are ruthlessly exploiting the housing crisis and inflicting misery on hundreds of families. What will the Taoiseach do?

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