Peter McVerry Trust CEO Pat Doyle to step down

Pat Doyle, CEO, Peter McVerry Trust, with Darragh O'Brien, TD, Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage at the charity’s social housing regeneration project in Rathmines, Eagle Lodge Leinster Road West, Dublin 6. Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos

Pat Doyle is to step down from his post as CEO of the Peter McVerry Trust at the end of May, while calling for an extension of the eviction ban and the establishment of a new housing executive to drive a programme of building and acquisition around the country.

Mr Doyle is stepping down after 18-and-a-half years in the role, during which time the organisation has expanded from two services, 13 staff and 24 clients, to approximately 800 staff, revenue of €50m and being the fifth largest supplier of housing in the State in 2022.

A former social worker, Mr Doyle tendered his letter of resignation to the board of the PMVT last week. 

In a statement, Fr Peter McVerry, the founder of the Arrupe Society which was renamed the Peter McVerry Trust in 2005 on Mr Doyle’s suggestion, said: “His time as CEO has seen the charity totally transformed into a national organisation helping thousands of people each year whilst continuing to deliver in alignment with its original ethos and values. I want to wish Pat well in the coming months and in his future endeavours.” 

Call for changes

The PMVT supports 12,000 people per year and is now active in 28 of the 31 local authority areas, but ahead of stepping down on May 31, Mr Doyle said that while the homelessness crisis has never been worse, there was the possibility that some changes already underway will begin to reverse the current record level of people in emergency accommodation. 

He also said other changes should be considered - including setting up a National Housing Executive that would take over from local authorities, and in the short term, an extension of the eviction ban which is due to end at the end of March.

"We need a national housing executive that is saying 'the population of Carlow requires 600 units and we will give them 300 this year and 300 in two years time’, whereas developers are deciding [currently] what they are building and where they are building,” he said.

As for the eviction ban, he said he wanted to see it extended, alongside changes to the Residential Tenancies Board, primarily because the number of suitable properties available in the private rental market was still too low.

We can’t be evicting people when nothing available on the private market.

The outgoing CEO said the growing involvement of the PMT in providing housing was part of this approach.

“I copped in 2010 that the only way we were going to get beyond this was to move into housing ourselves,” he said. The charity was the largest provider of one-bed units in the state last year and he insisted that any future property developments should have a mandatory percentage of one and four-bed units included, to take into account the demographics of a particular area.

He also said that in a recent conversation with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar he suggested homelessness outside the cities could be eradicated through the use of derelict buildings, vacant sites and even empty pubs. Mr Doyle also said the state could be more assertive when it came to sites with full planning permission that were not being built.

"We could solve this outside of the four or five major cities within two years if we wanted to,” he said.