Green TD Neasa Hourigan on the eviction ban and why it’s important

Green TD Neasa Hourigan on the eviction ban and why it’s important from ireland

44 comments

  1. It’s all a bit rich when they vote with the government and do fuck all else other than furrow their brows and show how bothered they are about it.

  3. “This will put services at breaking point”

    Perhaps, I dunno, maybe the government could just TRY and provide better services 🤷

  4. Government fails to build housing for its people, fails to provide solid infrastructure, cities are slowly falling apart, looking run down, hospitals have been fucked for a while, education lacking staff.

    What actually is the government’s job at this stage ?

    To enable corporations to extract wealth from people because that’s all I seem to see going on, a transfer of wealth.

    Build fucking housing, start a national building program ran by government, directly employ staff to do so, builders, engineers, architects, don’t use a third party like BAM, fucking idiots arguing over money, when people’s lives are affected by this.

    People who defend this current situation we know what side your bread is buttered on and it’s the side that wants profit at the cost of others, FUCK YOU !

  7. Just because a small party compromises on an issue and votes for it (for the greater good of getting their policies passed), doesn’t mean they can’t publicly say they’re against it.

    If anything, the Greens have a duty to say “we’re against this in principal, but we’re voting for it so we can get FFG to vote for essential policies such as X, Y, Z”.

  8. That whinging small landlord guy is a perfect representation of the mindset that has fed this crisis. No ability to think beyond a market-first model or grasp that people’s lives shouldn’t be less important than property

  9. Transcript from 0.00 to 1.31 of the video(**Green TD Neasa Hourigan**) The level of homelessness in my area is unprecedented…..It huge….my kids go to school with other kids in there class that are homeless.

    I very much feel this will result in a jump in homeless figures that will not only put people out of their homes but will also put services at breaking point I will in A month will have people in my constituency clinic who have been asked through no fault of their own, this is no fault evictions, this is not people not paying there rent this is not people who are engaged in anti social behavior.

    I will have people in my constituency saying I have been asked to leave my home my kids are going to have leave school these are 5 6 7 year olds who are going to have to leave school and move to another area.

    I don’t know where those people are going to go I don’t think those hotel rooms are there for them I don’t think theres BanBs there for them I think this will result in people in my consistency not having a roof over there head children not having a roof over there head.

    Just to say its not really the cabinet because it is the three leaders who make this decision and the the cabinet kinda shshs seals the deal. You know they kinda rubber stamp it. You can see how frustrated by this process

    (**Then the presenter says**) You a coalition member.

    ( **Green TD Neasa Hourigan** ) I am a coatition memeber I am incredibly

    (**Then the presenter responds**) Your sitting there shouting at Leo varakar what hell are you doing.

    ( **Green TD Neasa Hourigan** ) I am incredibly frustrated I don’t think a single person of those three men in that room thought about Me sitting in constituency clinic and have to talk to a mammy who has no roof oo uuh put over the head of there child.

    I am incredibly frustrated by it I don’t think that this situation reflects green party values and I have to say I don’t think in that room and I am including my own minster Ryan in this was speaking up for those families in that room.

    Yet she remains in the Green Party. She did feel the need to vote against government previously over the full public ownership of the National Maternity Hospital site.

    Didn’t feel the need to vote against the government though on housing.

  10. Maybe I’m stupid, but is it really fair to force a landlord into letting a family stay in a property they own?

    I don’t own a home I rent but if my landlord was like, ” Hey man, you gotta go. Renting isn’t worth it I’ll be selling the house”.

    Why do I have any rights to not let this landlord do what he or she wants with their own property?

    Isn’t it the governments fault people are homeless? Or can’t find affordable accomdation where they live?

    Why are landlords scapegoats in a bigger problem caused by a mismanaged housing sector by the government?

  11. Looks like the greens are going through there cycle of being relevant and not, the Achilles heel of the party has always been poor social policy.

  12. The rental market is dead now anyway. May as well keep the ban until the courts deem it unconstitutional. Sure why not threaten to kneecap anyone considering renting property out while they’re at it? could be a few votes in it. By next winter there will be zero properties to rent on Daft. Even the Reits will scarper.

  14. Very politically short sighted by the government. This will just add to the protests about immigration and hotel accomadation.

  15. Unpopular opinion: Fucking around with short-term policies in the housing market has been the modus operandi since the 1990s that led us into the Celtic Tiger house boom and subsequent collapse, and back again to where we are now. Housing is not elastic, short-term policies lead to long-term effects. You shouldn’t do anything with housing unless you’re planning for 5-20 years down the line, or it’s a complete emergency.

    Eviction bans are a short-term policy. During Covid, it was an emergency, it was necessary. This is not an emergency. The longer it goes on, the more problems you encounter later on when you do lift it. For example;

    – When it ends, you suddenly have hundreds of tenancies end, people signing on for housing assistance, and weird market conditions appearing

    – Landlords will get increasingly desperate and will engineer ways to evict tenants despite the ban

    I don’t know what the exact *right* approach is, but history does tell us that this kind of policy is not the correct one, and to persist with it is just more of them same populist crap that adds more dysfunction to an already fucked situation.

    Evictions are an unfortunately necessary function of the system. Part of the churn that makes housing available to people who need it.

  16. I understand people being annoyed at her seemingly being at odds with her party on most decisions but at the same time would people prefer if TDs just said nothing while their party seems to take decisions that are the complete opposite of what the party is meant to stand for? Would be curious to know if grassroots members approved of her actions or not

  17. What’s incentivising landlords to evict existing tenants?

    Is it so they can sell the property? Or get new tenants in and jack up the rent? (against rules in an RPZ but imagine it’s not too strictly controlled)

  19. Only a lifelong civil servant living of the public back could be so far away from reality and the consequences of it.

    The primary cause of the housing and accommodation crisis is government policy. They chose not to build homes years ago, they chose the open door immigration policy that is driving demand through the roof. They chose the overly complicated planning, permission, health and safety, building regulations that make building housing so expensive and complicated.

    The government is looking for a fall guy for the public to vilify and take the attention off them. Right now it’s a small, private landlords!

    They have no influence on government policy, regulations, immigration mandates, et cetera.

    So what does she propose if a tenant stops paying rent, is disruptive to neighbours or vandalises the place?? The landlord is not going to put any more money into maintaining the place, they are already losing tens of thousands on legal costs and lost rent.

    What people ignore is that over 50% of rent received calls to the government through one tax or another.

    There are people out there that think everyone should own the place that they live in. This is beyond absurd, but if you’re only staying in a city or town for a couple of months, to a course or whatnot. How many places have you lived as a young person before you figured things out and settled down somewhere.

    I remember that the world economic Forum press release a couple of years ago that by 2030. You will own nothing and be happy. Everything the government does is moving in that direction, state control over everything.

    As far as I am concerned, they can go f**k themselves.

  22. There’s over 160,000 empty houses in the country, some derelict but the government is doing nothing about them. The council where I live owns a 3 bed semi, the tenants left two years ago, and it’s still empty. There are a huge number of empty rooms above shops in Cork and there’s no incentive to let them out.

  24. The absolute hack of this one. A government coalition member complaining about the governments policies. Zero self awareness.

    The bit at the end where she said we have ‘no rent control in this country’. What planet is she living on? We’ve had rent pressure zone (effectively rent control) since 2016 in her constituency

  26. The whingy landlord complaining that he can’t sell his investment property, which he only rented to wait for it to grow in value, so now he’s threatening he’ll pull out of the market because he can’t sell (which is ultimately what he wanted to do anyway) is priceless.

    Let’s be honest the government needs to actually build more affordable homes. Also let’s be more honest the government is fucking dogshit at everything from welfare, to immigration, to airports, to roads/motoring, to marriages/divorces, to stock investments etc. It seems like everything in this fucking country that the government touches turns to dogshit and a headache. There’s too many employees who are supposed to be working for the public doing a shite job and earning a great salary and we need real leadership and change.

    We have a housing crisis which has caused a homelessness crisis. I’m not heartless to landlords, but the real victims are the people, and property should not be treated as an investment I’m sick of everything going up in price due to this mentality when all everyone wants is a home. Rent is entirely unaffordable for many people coupled with bills it’s a nightmare. There are over 6,000 homeless Irish children. Profits right now aren’t the real concern – if people can’t live normal lives the country will turn to shit anyways. All evictions should be banned if no laws are being broken by tenants, until we can actually sort out housing to some minimally non-ridiculous level, and I don’t care if that takes 10 years. What’s going on right now in Ireland is inhumane.

  27. I live in her constituency, she called around to my door one day and amongst other things spoke about how she was involved in the Cross Guns campaign to stop apartments being built on a currently derelict site at Cross Guns bridge.

    So how about instead of backing measures that are proven to not help on any sort of timescale beyond about 5 minutes, she stops objecting to new housing in her constituency.

  28. It really is such ridiculous and horrific circumstances.
    As long as FFG get their pockets filled by fellow landlords and hotel proprietors everyone else can go fuck themselves.

    It must be incredible to be able to fuck people over and never have a single passing feeling of guilt or bother.

  29. How many houses does Leo, Micheal and the lads own? Seriously? Is there a way we can find out?

    They infamously shafted the country on the 10% levy for the developers- (chums of theirs) and reneged on that levy for affordable housing- and then scratch their heads and say- sorry we cannot afford to build affordable homes.

    There should be a criminal investigation into the political multi millionaires chancers.

    Scumbags.

  31. Structural homelessness is Not the landlords problem…eviction ban a shocking disgrace at ‘policy’ …

  33. Don’t worry they’ll find a way to get themselves to stay in power and If somehow they get voted out they’ll try very hard to make the other side look as bad as possible

  34. Is the thinking that if the bans were lifted, people would be evicted so landlords could jack up the rent? Is the problem then one about controlling the amount that can be increased and dissuading evictions for that reason?

    Or is the fear that landlords will sell now because prices are high? In that case, wouldn’t it be someone currently renting that buys the house and in the grand scheme of things free up a rental elsewhere?

    Or is the major concern that rents went up by X during covid and existing tenants can’t afford them so aren’t paying them and will be evicted the minute the ban is lifted?

    Is there any good relatively independent expert on this stuff that you’d recommend? Often it seems to be either landlords with a clear vested interest or politicians that are angling for votes.

  35. “most landlords are small independent landlords and they’re the backbone of housing”
    Backbone more like tailbone, my hole do landlords do anything positive in this country.

  38. lovely estate up from me, premium spot, 12 vacant houses in it, developer must have run out of money of something, half the houses are inhabited, the other half rotting.

  39. To counter this argument as a former landlord…

    Many who bought houses before 2008 crash have had a decade of negative equity with very low interest rates. Now is a good time to sell if they were accidental landlords.

    – Rising interest rates (trackers were basically 1%, now 4%)
    – High demand, low supply
    – House out of negative equity
    – Punitive policy measures like rent caps, eviction bans

    Why should they not be allowed to sell an asset they own, and most likely giving 6+ months notice?

  40. Leave the party or, frankly, shut up. Your party doing it. Leopards ate your face etc.

    Leave, or just admit this is as empty a gesture as it is, simply securing your exit from the party to run on a left wave after the greens provesd themselves the same neo-liberal cunts as their coalition leash holders

  41. Amount of government meddling in the housing market is outrageous.

    Like doing everything but building gaffs at this stage.

  42. The lack of decency and humanity from landlords who are crying because people don’t want them to play monopoly and screw people of housing, a basic human right, comforts me in the idea that this government was indeed too relaxed with landlords (oh surprise)

  44. I went for a walk around my village today and actually hit home what a big issue is.. while the village is used lots in the summer as a holiday village, it’s also within an hours commute to Dublin… Yet I counted 6 houses that used to be rented, that are now Air BnBs .. surely the government can look into banning short term rent for these sort of things or hammer them with more tax versus the standard landlord to get more houses back for long term use

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