Government urged to keep eviction ban option open to tackle homelessness

Report outlines 14 recommendations aimed at preventing homelessness and accelerating access to long-term housing

The housing committee's report contains 14 recommendations and urges housing minister James Browne to keep the idea of a blanket ban on evictions on the table. File picture

All options to solve homelessness should be kept under review — including an emergency ban on no-fault evictions for a defined period — according to a new report by an Oireachtas committee.

The housing committee's report contains 14 recommendations and urges housing minister James Browne to keep the idea of a blanket ban on evictions on the table. 

Such a ban was last in place in the wake of the covid pandemic.

Committee chair Micheál Carrigy said he does not believe such a ban would work but that the committee had "deep concern at the rising levels of homelessness including single people, couples, families with children, and pensioners".

The report urges the Government to introduce an emergency package of measures to reduce the number of people becoming homeless, assist people to exit homelessness more quickly, and ensure the Government meets its targets of ending long-term homelessness by 2030.

The report calls for "a greater focus on prevention" including increased funding for schemes such as the tenant-in-situ programme as well as increased delivery of Housing First, which provides formerly homeless people with wraparound services. 

The report also seeks a greater allocation of social homes for those exiting homelessness and a "significant increase in funding for and delivery of social and genuinely affordable homes".

Other recommendations say the Government should:

• Revise and extend the Youth Homeless Strategy to 2030;
• Develop a child homelessness strategy;
• Engage with all relevant stakeholders including the HSE, local authorities, and NGOs to ensure that individuals exiting homelessness have sufficient supports and services to sustain their new home and address the trauma experienced in homelessness.

The report goes on to say that forthcoming housing delivery action plans from councils should set out the total number of social, cost rental, and affordable purchase homes to be delivered each year and ensure that people living in direct provision are engaged with as early as possible to ensure they do not exit direct provision accommodation into homelessness.

The committee also recommended that Mr Browne consider holding a referendum to introduce a right to housing into the Constitution.

Speaking at the launch of the report, Sinn Féin's Eoin Ó Broin said the "ball was now in Mr Browne's court" and urged him to give consideration to the report.