'Anger and anxiety' over lifting of eviction ban set to fuel Cork protest
Alina Maranescu, who was living with her young son in a flat where faeces and urine dripped through her ceiling, will address the protest. Picture: Dan Linehan
"Anger and anxiety" about ending the eviction ban will fuel the first in a series of national housing crisis protests to be held in Cork on Saturday.
Housing campaigners and people who are set to lose their rental homes will address the gathering outside the vacant buildings at 7-9 Parnell Place next to Cork city’s bus station.
The location for the protest is symbolic as well as central. The buildings were sold by Cork City Council to Dublin-based developers Tetrarch Capital in 2017 to develop a hotel but have been idle since, said TD Mick Barry.
Alina Maranescu, who was living with her young son in a flat where faeces and urine dripped in through her ceiling will also speak. She says the housing crisis left her feeling forced to stay there despite fears for their health.
Ending the eviction ban will impact many people, Mr Barry said, from parents of young children to professionals.
“There is real anger with what people are going through,” he said.
Mr Barry said that people are desperately trying to find alternative accommodation but some will be forced to turn to already overstretched homeless services or to Garda stations for shelter.
It is inevitable that the number of people overholding on their lease will increase, Mr Barry said, because many people will have nowhere else to go.
Overholding, or staying on in a property and continuing to pay rent after a valid notice of termination has expired, is not illegal once a tenant and landlord enter dispute and it can give tenants some time to source alternative accommodation, he said.
“Already hundreds of people at least are overholding, it can be the only alternative to being evicted into homelessness,” he said.
“There is going to be a significant increase in the numbers of people overholding in the State.”
He expects a round of protests to follow Cork’s ‘speak out’ protest on Saturday. Eviction-ban protests are planned nationwide for April 1 — the day the ban officially lifts — including a protest outside the Dáil.
Collective action — where neighbours band together to show support and solidarity with someone facing the threat of eviction into homelessness — is another possible tool communities may use in the coming months to prevent evictions or put pressure on landlords not to evict, he said.
Elected representatives who voted for the ban, particularly senior Government officials, should meet vocal protests over the coming weeks and be held to account for their part in lifting the ban, he said.
On Thursday, Trinity College students protested at an event attended by Transport and Environment Minister Eamon Ryan, over his vote with Government to lift the eviction ban.
On Wednesday evening, some Independent TDs helped Government defeat Sinn Féin’s motion calling for the eviction ban to be extended until January, with a majority of 83 votes to 68.
The Government instead outlined plans to increase social housing, buy up homes for sale for tenants in situ, and create tax incentives for small landlords, claiming that extending the ban would “do more harm than good” in the long term.
However, it is now feared that thousands of people will face eviction, with limited alternative places to rent, due to a severely-constricted rental housing supply.
Approximately 4,700 people were issued with eviction notices prior to the last ban, which began last October.
The Labour Party now plans to bring forward a no-confidence motion in the Government over ending the eviction ban.
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