LAST UPDATE | 19 Mar

SINN FÉIN HAS called for the tenant in situ scheme to be reinstated in order to protect renters from homelessness.

It has been suspended since the end of last year, as the outgoing government did not agree on new funding targets in time.

The scheme allows tenants to stay in their home even if the landlord decides to sell. The council or the Housing Agency can buy the property from the landlord and the tenants can stay and avoid eviction.

In more than half of eviction cases, the landlord is selling the property.

Since April 2023, more than 2,500 households have been able to avoid homelessness because of the scheme.

Sinn Féin Housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said that the outgoing coalition “didn’t get its act together” in time to agree on funding last year and, as a result, “several hundred” applications have been stalled.

“And obviously in some of those cases, the landlords are likely to walk away completely.”

Sinn Féin, which is tabling a Dáil motion on the subject, has criticised proposed changes to the scheme which it says would make it more restrictive and therefore cause people to fall into homelessness.

One of the new rules – that hasn’t yet been green lit by Minister James Browne – would mean a landlord selling a home to a local authority would have to be in receipt of a social housing support payment for two years prior to the sale.

Ó Broin also said that single people and couples without children are being wrongly deprioritised by the system.

He said that the need for the opposition to continuously fight for the survival of the scheme shows that housing is not a priority for the government.

Housing targets

Meanwhile, the Central Bank has warned that the “loss of momentum” with homes being built was “greater than expected” at the end of last year and will continue into this year.

The government had issued revised housing completion targets of 41,000 this year in its programme for government, but it’s estimated that housing completions for this year will be just 35,000.

Ó Broin said it’s “very concerning, but not at all surprising” that the govenrment will fall short of it targets.

“It doesn’t have to be this way. We do not have to accept housing failure.”

The same view was held by other opposition parties who spoke on the plinth at Leinster House today.

Some 30,330 new dwellings were completed last year, down from 32,695 the year previous in 2023, despite promises that nearly 40,000 would be built.

Labour Party housing spokesperson Conor Sheehan said today: “They spun and spun this 40,000 figure. They could not meet it, they were not going to meet it, and it’s clear again today that they can’t meet the figures from this year.”

It was reported on Monday that over half of Ireland’s local authorities are failing to collect money from owners of derelict sites, and figures suggest that councils are owed more than €20 million in unpaid levies.

Sheehan says there’s been too much attention put on councils, and not enough put on the failures of government.

However, he added, local authorities who are not doing their job should be held to account by the minister.