No return to eviction ban even if homelessness spikes, Varadkar says

The Taoiseach has indicated he would not favour the reintroduction of an eviction ban even if there was a large increase in homeless figures.

Asked by Sinn Féin’s public expenditure spokeswoman Mairéad Farrell about the Government’s decision not to extend the eviction ban, which will now expire at the end of the month, Leo Varadkar said the solution was “preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place”.

He said the Government expected homelessness to increase in the wake of removing the ban, but argued numbers were rising during it as well. However, he indicated he would be hesitant to reintroduce another ban if there was a big increase in homelessness.

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“If there’s a large increase in homelessness we have to figure out what is the best way to reverse that, would the reintroduction of an eviction ban reverse that? I think it probably wouldn’t,” he told Ms Farrell.

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“If I honestly believed an eviction ban for four months or six months would reduce homelessness it would have done it in the last four to six months while we had it in place. So why would reintroducing it do it?” he said.

The Taoiseach also said he is “disappointed” with the level of tenant-in-situ purchases being completed by local authorities, promising to “sit on” councils in an effort to get them to increase the number of deals done.

A tenant-in-situ purchase involves a local authority buying a rental property where the owner is willing to sell and the tenant is eligible for social housing support. The tenant remains on after the deal is completed. He said that he was “disappointed at the extent to which this is being done up until now, and it really needs to be accelerated”.

He said he, Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien and Minister of State Kieran O’Donnell intended to “really sit on” local authorities to make it work at a faster pace.

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Mr Varadkar was appearing in front of the Oireachtas finance committee to update it on revised estimates in his department.

Mr Varadkar told the committee that he will raise the British government’s Northern Ireland legacy bill with US president Joe Biden when he visits Washington DC as part of the St Patrick’s Day programme. “It’s going to be a matter I’m sure I’ll discuss in the US next week,” Mr Varadkar told the Oireachtas committee on Thursday, adding that it is “one of the things I want to speak to President Biden about”.

Mr Varadkar also said the Good Friday Agreement was “the way forward”, but that it had left a “cold peace” and “didn’t live up to the hopes and optimism and promise” of the time when it was passed. However, he said it was “still the basis for the future of Northern Ireland and this island”.

The legacy bill, which is currently working its way through the House of Lords in Westminster, would create a new truth recovery body – the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Informaiton Recovery – which will offer immunity from prosecution to perpetrators who co-operate with its inquiries. It is opposed by the Government in Dublin and all parties in Northern Ireland.

Asked by Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín if the Government would consider taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights over the legacy bill, he said he “wouldn’t rule it out” but strongly downplayed any prospect of it happening in the short term. “We don’t rule out a court challenge but taking your nearest neighbour to court is not a small thing to do, and it could sour relations between the Government and the Westminster government.”

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Asked about the Windsor Framework, the new deal signed between the EU and the UK on the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol, Mr Varadkar said prime minister Rishi Sunak had shown “enormous leadership and steel”, and that the Irish Government wanted to give time and space for the DUP to consider its position on the deal.

When it comes to restoring the Stormont institutions, he said the Good Friday Agreement was “genius” and is “the way forward” but that its legacy had been a “cold peace” with institutions “up and down” and “not the level of integration we would have hoped for”. He said it “didn’t live up to the hopes and optimism and promise of the time”.

Mr Tóibín questioned the Government’s competency in responding to big challenges in the healthcare sector, and in managing migration. Mr Varadkar, however, said that patient outcomes in Ireland were improving and that waiting lists “as we measure them” were falling. “Our health service delivers good outcomes largely because of the quality of our frontline staff.”

However, he said he was “horrified at the fact that patients have to spend hours and hours on a trolley waiting for admission to a hospital bed”, which he said negatively impacts patient outcomes.

On migration, he conceded that the State “could have done a better job” on accommodating those fleeing the war in Ukraine in pledged accommodation, and that the Government had “relied very much on the Red Cross” to deliver the solution, but it had “struggled”.