Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 11 November 2021
13. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will work with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to ensure that the remaining tenants in a location (details supplied) who are all in receipt of social housing support are not made homeless; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55036/21]
Amharc ar fhreagraI thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle very much and I appreciate this. I raise the issue of the residents of St. Helen’s Court in Dún Laoghaire, which is a multi-unit apartment complex directly across from my office, which was bought out by vulture funds a number of years ago. The first vulture fund made two attempts to mass evict on the grounds of sale, refurbishment or various other ruses. Because we fought them at the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, it then flipped the complex to another vulture fund, which has made two attempts to mass evict and has now succeeded. The tenants are now over-holding and are faced with homelessness unless there is an intervention. I just want to know what can be done here?
I thank the Deputy for raising this matter again. It is a serious one and I am familiar with it because the Deputy has raised it a number of times.
To move away from the standard answer on this and give the Deputy the facts as they stand, I have engaged with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, as has my Department, to make every effort to ensure that those dwellings in St. Helen’s Court are referred to be secured for social housing. AHBs have engaged directly also on several occasions with the owners’ representatives with a view to buying and acquiring the dwellings at the location for social housing. The problem is that in both instances, through DL-RCC and AHBs, the owner is not willing to sell the units. I have said that I would provide the finance to do so. The council has also engaged with the owner with a view to leasing, even though some people want to cancel leasing tomorrow morning. We have a pipeline of leasing for 3,400 real families who are going to be housed. These are families comprising real people that the Deputy is advocating very strongly for. We have looked at that but again the owner has decided not to proceed.
On foot of this question I will personally engage again with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. We are doing as much as we can to try to secure this property but if the owner is not willing to sell, there may be other options that can be looked. I am happy to continue to work with the Deputy on this. Both the Department and I have engaged directly with the council on St. Helen’s Court. I am fully in favour of securing those properties as social housing on a permanent basis, that is, that we buy them, but we need the owner to be willing to engage to sell. Sin í an fhadhb.
I appreciate that the Minister has engaged and that efforts have been made. Here is the irony. This vulture fund went into the RTB and the tenants said they thought that the claim the fund was going to sell was a ruse because the fund owns 20 apartments and said that it was only going to sell the ones where there were tenants, and the ones that were sitting empty, where the fund had managed to drive the other tenants out, were not being sold. This was totally not plausible. The fund then evicted tenants on the grounds of sale but then told the council that it is not selling. It is a joke. We all know what they are up to. The fund just wants to drive up the value of the property and the rents it can charge. The council is then saying that it cannot buy the ones that are supposedly for sale because there are tenants in them and that it does not buy apartments with sitting tenants as it can only buy the empty ones.
That means they will be homeless unless we change that view.
I am aware of the history of this and a lot of this predates me, let us be straight about it.
No, absolutely.
For the record of the House, I want to be clear that I am speaking in general terms. Where it is found that anyone has misled the RTB in their intentions, the RTB has powers to investigate, move forward and prosecute.
I will personally engage with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown again following the question tabled by the Deputy. He tabled questions in May and we answered questions last December, to be fair. He continues to advocate on behalf of these tenants. Local authorities will, in extremis, purchase homes with tenants in situ. That is not done too often as there can be a moral hazard. It would not be the norm because people may move ahead of others on the list. I will personally engage with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown after this session and revert to the Deputy once I have a further update. We are doing our best to acquire them.
I remind the Minister that this is a precedent, a point I put to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. There have been comments that people are skipping the queue. They are HAP tenants. They are on the list. Some are quite elderly. Some have children and are very vulnerable. They are well up the list.
We have to remember that 13 empty apartments have been sitting there for two years while people are crying out for places. The whole thing is an utter scandal. Do not let bureaucratic box ticking stuff get in the way of preventing people from being made homeless. They are currently being threatened with court action and have been told that they will pay the costs if they do not get out. They have nowhere to go.
I am pleading with the Minister to get around this. These people cannot be allowed to evict these tenants. Even now, the tenants are paying their rent and have never missed a payment. They have done absolutely nothing wrong. The representatives of the vulture fund went to the RTB and said they know it is ugly, but they are maximising the value of their asset. It is disgusting.
I thank Deputy Boyd Barrett. To reiterate, I know this is a serious situation for the families who are worried about whether they will have a home in a number of months' time. At my direction, we sought to buy or lease those units. We will go back again following the Deputy's representation here today. Once I have an update, I will engage with the Deputy directly.
I am open to using innovative methods to house people. We have shown in the first 18 months what we intend to do. We are very serious about providing permanent homes for our people. That is what we are doing in this particular instance.
I know this is serious. We are doing our best. I will re-engage on this and revert to the Deputy will an update. If we need to meet, which I am sure we will do, we can do so in the coming weeks.
I appreciate that.
