'975 people facing eviction': Protest on housing crisis takes place at Cork City Hall

A protest outside Cork City Hall on Tuesday evening heard calls for the reinstatement of the Government’s temporary ban on no-fault evictions.

The rally, which drew a crowd of some 40 people on a damp evening in the city, was organised by the Cork Cost of Living Campaign.

The protest took place before Tuesday's meeting of Cork City Council, and occurred in the wake of the Government’s controversial decision to allow the eviction ban to lapse at the end of March.

Tuesday’s council meeting was due to debate a motion calling for the reinstatement of the ban and was to hear a report from the council’s strategic policy committee (SPC) on housing on the council’s preparedness for dealing with a possible post-ban wave of applications for emergency housing.

Socialist Party TD Mick Barry had earlier appealed to people who wanted to see the eviction ban reinstated to attend the protest.

“The Government are trying to hide behind a two week Dáil recess to dodge public pressure on the eviction ban issue,” Mr Barry said.

“The Government needs to be put under pressure to reinstate the eviction ban and the council needs to be put under pressure to provide accommodation, including emergency accommodation, for all who need it.

“It is a disgrace that roughly 300 council properties are vacant at a time when a wave of evictions is underway,” the Cork North Central TD said.

Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central, Thomas Gould, said renters were “terrified” in the wake of the Government’s decision to allow the eviction ban to lapse.

“Right now there are 975 people and families in Cork facing eviction, a thousand families facing eviction in Cork.

“This country had evictions while the British were in charge and now we have Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and they’re doing to the Irish what the landlords and the Tories did back in the day, and it’s not good enough, and we won’t accept it,” Mr Gould said.

Gary Baus of People Before Profit asked where those evicted are supposed to go, saying there was nowhere for them but the streets.

Likening the current housing emergency to Famine times when food was hoarded and exported for profit while people starved, Mr Baus said housing was being hoarded and traded for profit while people sleep on the streets.

“The English landlord gave way to the Irish landlord, and the Irish landlord gave way to the multi-national landlord,” he said.

“The problem was never the nationality of the landlord, the problem is the landlord. We don't need landlords - we need housing. 

Mr Baus said that through what he called “an organised rebellion” evictions could be resisted and the right to housing could be won.

“If you’re facing an eviction you are not alone. Contact Threshold, the RTB, and the Community Action Tenants Union, and alongside tens of thousands of us we will fight alongside you,” he said.

“We as renters are over a million strong. We should take inspiration from history and remember what we can achieve when we work together.” 

Mr Baus said there was an urgent need to cut and freeze rents and to extend the eviction ban.

“We need to renovate all vacant properties and ghost estates and build public housing on public land through a not-for-profit national construction company,” he said.

“Overall, we need to put public need over private greed. We want housing for the people, not a housing market for the rich.” 

Despite strong criticism from housing charities and opposition voices, some have defended the housing policies of the Government and Cork City Council, among them former lord mayor of Cork, Fianna Fáil councillor Colm Kelleher, who told The Echo the State has spent €878 million on housing in Cork in the past 18 months.

“Last year in the city under Housing for All, the Government’s housing policy, we delivered 934 social and affordable homes across the city, and that represented an investment of over €357 million,” Mr Kelleher said.

“A further 1,151 social homes are under construction, representing an investment of over €402 million, and there’s a total of 385 homes across seven schemes recently approved by the Department of Housing that will commence construction over the next number of months totaling just over €149 million.

“The above, and the homes delivered in 2022, and those currently onsite and those commencing construction, represents an investment of €878 million in total," he said.