Eviction ban will not be extended and will lapse at end of March

The moratorium on evictions will not be extended, the Coalition leaders decided late on Monday night, but will begin to lapse as planned at the end of this month.

Cabinet will have to offer the final sign off on the plan, which was decided after hours of deliberation involving Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Tánaiste Micheál Martin, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan and Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien late into Monday evening.

While the ban is coming to an end on March 31st, many renters will remain protected until June due to measures provided for in the legislation.

The Irish Times understands that the Government is to develop plans to help tenants including giving them first refusal to buy if a landlord is selling and also for a budgetary package to support tenants and landlords.

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Cabinet is also to examine other measures to accelerate and increase social housing delivery.

Speaking before the meeting, Mr Varadkar said the Cabinet would “have to weigh up the pros and cons”, that the future of the ban was “not a black and white decision”, and it involved balancing “a number of different rights”.

[ Ban on evictions needs to balance rights of landlords and tenants, Varadkar says ]

Mr O’Brien said the Government was anxious to stem the flight of landlords from the rental market. “Anything we do ... will have to be carefully calibrated to make sure we’re not seeing a decrease in supply in that sector,” he said.

It is understood that while the moratorium will not be extended Mr O’Brien will seek agreement that a budgetary package for both tenants and landlords would be developed over the coming months.

Sources also said there was agreement on a suggestion put forward by the Green Party to strengthen tenants’ rights by giving them first refusal on purchasing their home if the landlord is selling it, or secondly, that it should be offered to an Approved Housing Body which would allow them to continue living in it.

[ Inside Politics newsletter: Coalition had no good options on evictions ban ]

[ ‘Extending the eviction ban is a doomsday scenario for me’: Renters and landlords on the ban ]

There was understood to be concern among senior Department of Housing officials that an extension to the ban would only be putting off the inevitable in terms of evictions resuming. There was also concern in the same department about another option – to have a recurring winter eviction ban of the kind that happens in France – as this could create an “eviction season” for the rest of the year.

Opposition politicians and organisations working with homeless people and renters have been pushing for the ban to be extended amid fears of a surge in homelessness in its absence.

[ Landlords will ‘not stand idly by’ if eviction ban is extended ]

Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin predicted there would be “a significant increase in homelessness” if the ban were to expire and called for it to be extended until the end of the year.

Wayne Stanley, the executive director of homelessness charity Simon Communities, warned that allowing the ban to lapse would see homeless services “stretched beyond breaking point” within months.

Groups representing landlords and auctioneers called for the ban to be ended, with the Irish Property Owners’ Association warning that many of its members would initiate legal challenges to any move to extend it.

Pat Davitt, chief executive of the Institute of Professional Auctioneers & Valuers, said a new report by his organisation suggested that 25,000 of 166,000 vacant properties across the country could potentially be brought back into use, but warned this might not be achievable if potential landlords did not have the ability to evict tenants.