Up to 60 people gathered in Cork’s Parnell Place just after midday today to protest the Government’s decision to lift the temporary ban on no-fault evictions at the end of the month.

The protest heard from renters facing eviction following the lifting of the ban, from housing activists, and from Socialist Party TD Mick Barry.

The Cork rally was planned as the first in a wave of protests set to take place across the State in the seven days leading to the lifting of the ban.

The protest, which was billed as a “speak-out”, took place outside two warehouses on Parnell Place.

The rally heard from Socialist Party TD Mick Barry that Government members needed to subjected to “organised, peaceful, but very, very, vocal” protest in the coming week as the March 31 deadline for the lifting of the ban approaches.

“There should be public protest against those Government TDs and ministers over the next week, at least, the pressure needs to be kept on them,” the Cork North Central TD said.

He added that anybody facing eviction into homelessness should consider the question of overholding, and staying in the property past the eviction date.

“It is not a criminal offence to overhold, and this is an important point,” Mr Barry said.

“It does put you in dispute with your landlord, it does mean that a landlord can take you to the Residential Tenancies Board, but that Residential Tenancies Board meeting would not be held in the next week or the week after that, it takes quite a period of time, so it does buy you some time."

Mr Barry said that eviction could and should be a matter for the entire community, and all who care about homelessness should show solidarity, with organised, peaceful, disciplined resistance to evictions.

Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central Thomas Gould told The Echo he was attending the rally in solidarity with all of the people “living in fear” as a result of the Government’s decision to lift the eviction ban.

“Everyone agrees, all the homeless charities, all the homeless organisations, that the ban on evictions should be extended, and this Government has no data to back up what they’re doing,” Mr Gould said.

“In Cork, according to the Residential Tenancies Board, there are 500 families and individuals, who are facing eviction from 1 April.

“That will be over April, May and June, and what that will mean is we’re going to have a summer of homelessness in Cork. Where are these people going to go?” 

Eoin Madigan, a renter from Limerick who is living in Cork with his partner, said they were facing eviction once the ban was lifted.

“This is going to cost lives, directly and indirectly,” he said.

Mr Madigan appealed to those at the rally to go on to attend the Cork Says No to Racism rally later in the afternoon.

“Migrants and refugees are not the cause of the housing crisis, it has been caused by ten or 15 years of Government policy,” he said.

One speaker, who is facing eviction, said the Government might not be called Alice, but “they’re living in a wonderland if they think it is going to be allowed” to lift the eviction ban without facing consequences.

The rally featured a rendition of Martin Leahy’s Everyone Should Have a Home and a poem by Majella M Murphy.

The meeting heard and accepted a proposal from Socialist Party member Martina Stafford that a picket be organised of Tánaiste Micheál Martin’s constituency office on Evergreen Road for 5pm on Friday 31 March, to coincide with the lifting of the eviction ban.