{"id":15632,"date":"2025-08-22T07:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T07:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/15632\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T07:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T07:02:11","slug":"it-feels-like-were-being-ignored-family-facing-eviction-after-council-puts-tenant-in-situ-scheme-on-hold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/15632\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It feels like we\u2019re being ignored\u2019 \u2013 family facing eviction after council puts tenant-in-situ scheme on hold"},"content":{"rendered":"

After their landlord announced plans to sell the house, Evan and Nadia Kavanagh, from Clondalkin, reached out to South Dublin County Council (SDCC) to ask about the tenant-in-situ scheme.<\/p>\n

The scheme allows the council to buy property from landlords when a tenant is at risk of homelessness.<\/p>\n

The family provided all their documents in April, but in July they heard SDCC would not be able to go ahead with the purchase.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, SDCC became the third of Dublin\u2019s four local authorities to pause applications for the scheme because the budget has been \u201cexhausted\u201d.<\/p>\n

The decision, which follows similar announcements from Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council, affects around 41 houses already in the process of being bought by SDCC.<\/p>\n

The Kavanaghs and their three young daughters are now facing eviction from their three-bedroom house on September 6.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a punch in the gut,\u201d he said. \u201cI was at work when the landlord knocked on our door and gave us the eviction notice. He just apologised to my wife.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife called me, crying. I was in the middle of work and unable to believe it was really happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very stressful situation. Our middle child is diagnosed with Level 3 autism. We spent three years trying to get a diagnosis for her, and it was only last year that we got her into a Special Needs Assistant (SNA) unit.<\/p>\n

\n

She\u2019s come a long way and we can\u2019t bear the idea of moving too far away from this school<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThe school she is in now finally accepted her, and she got into an SNA unit last September. In March, we were given the eviction notice.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s come a long way and we can\u2019t bear the idea of moving too far away from this school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Kavanagh, who grew up in Bally\u00adfermot, said they got in touch with SDCC as soon as they heard about the eviction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hadn\u2019t heard of the in-situ scheme ourselves, but the landlord mentioned he knew someone who had sold their house to the council a year before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were working with the council and our landlord was looking to sell, so we were in communication with both.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll that we heard back in the months following was that there was a new law being discussed around the in-situ scheme and that they had no information to give us \u2013 they couldn\u2019t tell if the property was going to be bought.<\/p>\n

\"Evan<\/p>\n

Evan and Nadia Kavanagh with their children Jodie (9), Freya (4) and Willow (7). Photo: Gerry Mooney<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople in the council didn\u2019t seem to know what was going on, and they couldn\u2019t tell us anything. We were just told, \u2018We don\u2019t know\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn July, after months of following up, SDCC finally said they would not be able to buy the property because their budget had been cut.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy whole life living in Dublin, I\u2019ve never broken the law, I\u2019ve never been in trouble for -anything, always done everything honestly.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, when I needed the Government more than ever, I feel abandoned. As someone who has always followed the rules and always done the best for my family, my neighbours and our home, I feel let down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like the Government don\u2019t care about my predicament, my family\u2019s predicament or my daughter\u2019s predica- ment.<\/p>\n

Mr Kavanagh said his family are availing of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme, a programme that sees councils offer housing support for tenants in need.<\/p>\n

\n

We\u2019ve always looked after the house and paid the rent on time<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cSince we moved in, we have had no history of any complaints, we\u2019ve always looked after the house and paid the rent on time,\u201d he said, adding that \u201cit\u2019s hard to find ourselves\u201d in this current situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had enough money to get by \u2013 I have a good enough job to sustain the family, my wife is a full-time carer for our daughter and a homemaker.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Evan<\/p>\n

Evan and Nadia Kavanagh with their children Jodie (9), Freya (4) and Willow (7), who are facing eviction from their home in Clondalkin, Dublin. Photo: Gerry Mooney<\/p>\n

Today’s News in 90 Seconds – August 22nd <\/p>\n

The family have been looking for homes close enough to their daughter\u2019s school to ensure the move does not disrupt her future.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last I spoke to the council was when I rang them up to see if there was anything at all they could do to help,\u201d Mr Kavanagh said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just said they wished they could, but the budget had been used up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re applying for houses every two days, we\u2019re sending on references or anything that can give us a head start, but we don\u2019t hear back.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing has worked \u2013 it feels like we\u2019re being completely ignored.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe keep thinking about how little time we have left, and that stresses us out even more.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for SDCC confirmed that its position on the tenant-in-situ scheme will be kept under review.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo date, we have completed the purchase of 42 homes, with another 23 homes currently in conveyancing,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cThis position will be kept under review should additional funding become available to SDCC.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were allocated \u20ac25m from the Department of Housing Local Government and Heritage for acquisitions in 2025, with acquisitions to focus on tenant-in-situ acquisitions, older persons, people with disabilities and those exiting homeless services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After their landlord announced plans to sell the house, Evan and Nadia Kavanagh, from Clondalkin, reached out to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[14174,9,10,18,13,14,6,3847,8752,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-15632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-azmia-riaz","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-housing","16":"tag-housing-crisis","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}