Council chamber hears heated debate as ban on evictions is lifted

PAUL MURPHY

A SINN FEIN notice of motion calling for the Government ban on evictions to be extended until the end of the year led to a stormy debate marked by frequent interruptions, fiery exchanges and calls for order by the Cathaoirleach at a meeting of Meath County Council on Monday.

At one stage, a councillor called the notice of motion “a political stunt” while another said that he was “speaking his own words, not from a script supplied by a headquarters probably in Belfast”.

The SF group – Cllrs Eddie Fennessy, Michael Gallagher and Aisling O’Neill – asked the council to call on the Government to extend the ban until the end of 2023; extend the tenant-in-situ scheme for social and affordable cost rental tenants; and use emergency planning and procurement powers to target vacant and derelict properties and new building technologies to deliver additional social and affordable homes above the targets for this year.

Cllr Fennessy said the true measure of any society could be found in how it treated its most vulnerable members. Some of the most vulnerable people in Irish society were the thousands of homeless and at-risk children whose wellbeing had been cast aside by the Government last week, a government that had chosen vested interests over the welfare of its people and who had made it abundantly clear that “vulnerable children don’t matter”.

The ending of the eviction ban in one fell swoop had reactivated almost 5,000 notices to quit and he had learned just before the meeting that an additional 4,200 were submitted in the final quarter of last year. “Behind each one of those notices is a family who face the very real prospect of homelessness as a consequence and to put it into a local context 127 of those families live in this county. It is a damning indictment of this Government and its failed housing policy”. He pointed out that before 2011 Ireland did not have a problem with homeless families. Homelessness back then was for people with addiction and mental health problems, he said. "Twelve years of Fine Gael administration, backed up by Fianna Fail since 2016, had normalised homelessness. Life for tens of thousands of families had been scarred for want of good governance and a little compassion from this State."

The SF group wanted Fine Gael and Fianna Fail councillors in particular to acknowledge the “nightmare” faced by their constituents.

Fianna Fail Cllr Wayne Harding said he could not support the motion because the language used in it was “part of the claptrap that comes out”. He said this Government was totally committed to dealing with the housing crisis and the work was being done. Extending the eviction ban into next January and using that kind of language is what Sinn Fein did - they had no answers.

Fine Gael Cllr Gerry O’Connor said he would not be supporting the SF motion. The solution to the problem lay in the supply of housing, he said. “I’d rather Sinn Fein TDs and councillors stop objecting to housing developments, 12,000 so far."

There were further interruptions from Cllrs Fennessy and Gallagher and the Cathaoirleach said he realised it was an emotive issue for everybody but he would only allow one speaker at a time.

Cllr O’Connor said: “I'm speaking from my own script not one given to me by headquarters. Just listen to the hypocrisy of Sinn Fein who said that if they were in power they would build 20,000 new and affordable social houses overnight which would double the construction sector overnight. This is nonsense coming out of Sinn Fein. They want to abolish the help-to-buy solution, a solution that has helped 37,000 people to get homes. They want to scrap the First Home scheme.

Amid further interruptions the Cathaoirleach said he was sorry he had to shout but was insisting that one speaker be allowed speak at any one time. Cllr O’Connor said: “I know why I’m being heckled here because they don’t want to listen to the truth”.

At one stage Cllr Killian told Cllr Fennessy that if he kept interrupting he would ask him to leave.

Independent Cllr David Gilroy said there were 500,000 rented properties in the country. The language used in the debate was “terrifying” people. The narrative at the moment was that everyone who lived in rented accommodation was “in anger”.

Fine Gael Cllr Joe Fox said that the Sinn Fein motion was “a pure political stunt”. Sinn Fein had the same speech in every county council in Ireland, “the very same speech probably written in Belfast or somewhere like that”.

He knew that here was a crisis at the moment but it would end. Thirty thousand houses had been built last year and almost as many would be built this year.

A show of hands resulted in four councillors against, six for the motion, and four abstentions.