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

This Friday in the District Court, behind the Four Courts, five individuals and families - working-class people - are going to pay the price for the Taoiseach’s failure to address the housing crisis. The case of the St. Helen’s Court apartment complex, where a vulture fund is going to evict the families, really tells the story of this housing crisis. They have always played their rent. The vulture fund is evicting them for no other reason than it wants to increase the value of the property – for profit. Faced with homelessness, they go to the council as they are on the housing list, but the council does not have any council houses for them because there are 5,000 families on the housing list. They are told to go and find a HAP tenancy but the council will only give them €1,000 to find a HAP tenancy and average rents in the area are €2,200. In other words, they are absolutely goosed. These are very worried people. What is the Taoiseach going to do for these people facing homelessness? Otherwise, they and many like them are going to be driven into homelessness over the coming weeks because we have not delivered the rent controls, the tenants’ rights and the affordable rents that people need.

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