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

The Taoiseach suggested the Government's Housing for All policy is working. I would like him to try to explain that to three people in the Gallery. They are Tony, Radoslaw and Seán, who are three of the five remaining tenants in the St. Helen's Court complex in Dún Laoghaire. This Friday they will be at the Four Courts, where a vulture fund will seek an enforcement order to evict them from their homes. They have never done anything wrong and have always paid their rent. Once upon a time they were part of a community of 20 tenants who all lived there. It was a fabulous community, which has been destroyed by the greed of two successive vulture funds. It is fair to say their lives have been ruined for four years by the greed and ruthlessness of vulture funds and the failure of this and previous Governments to address the causes of the persecution they have suffered at the hands of vulture funds.

Their story is not just a story of their persecution but, to be honest, it tells the story of tens of thousands of people who are victims of the housing crisis and the failure of this and successive Governments to deal with the matter. Why do I say this? This vulture fund has no reason to evict these people but it is allowed to evict them. Legally, the vulture fund is allowed to just throw these people out on the street. They have paid their rent and never done anything wrong but they can be thrown out on the street.

These tenants receive the housing assistance payment, HAP. Seán and Radoslaw are both working and Tony, who is now retired, was a healthcare worker. He has had a stroke as a result of the stress he suffered over the past four years at the hands of these vulture funds. They are HAP recipients, so in other words they are meant to be socially housed, although they are not. They are being thrown out on the street and the council has no obligation to rehouse such people. They may well end up in homeless accommodation.

This would not be such a problem if there was social housing but there are 5,000 families on the housing list waiting ten to 20 years to get a house. These people are included in that list. The tenants get €960, the homeless HAP rate, to find alternative accommodation but the problem is that rents are more than €2,000 per month in our area. What is really shocking is that not only will they end up on the street unless the Government intervenes but there are now only five tenants where there used to be 20. For two years, 15 fully refurbished apartments that could have housed people on the housing list have been sitting empty because a greedy vulture fund can make more profit by sitting on empty properties and evicting other tenants than renting them to people who need them.

What is the Taoiseach going to do about that for them and others facing similar persecution by vulture funds and the failure of Governments to deal with the housing crisis?

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