Eviction ban

The upcoming lifting of the eviction ban has been front line news in our mainstream media with over a week now. Whilst the government and opposition parties have been debating and arguing in what has become the great charadic theatre of Dáil Éireann, about the lifting of the eviction ban, no party as far as I can see has actually looked at what caused the need for the extreme measure that is the eviction ban in the first place. More importantly, no party has put forward any real solid plan or solution to truly address the critical housing situation in this country at this moment in time.

Here are a few reasons for the housing crisis which I can think of and some solutions which in my opinion, would help hugely in rectifying this situation and ultimately, eliminate the need for an eviction ban.

Reason No 1 - Nowhere near enough housing units being built. Solution - Incentivise builders to build far more houses and apartments.

Reason No 2 - Small private landlords being taxed out of existence! Solution - Incentivise people to rent out houses by reducing the crippling tax on our small landlords.

Reason No 3 - Foreign vulture funds buying up vast amounts of property and creating monopolies where they charge extortionate rent, paying little to no tax on their huge profits. Solution - Ban foreign vulture funds from our country.

Reason No 4 - Increasing numbers of non Irish citizens and residents of Ireland buying property for investment purposes. Solution - Limit the purchasing of Irish residential property to only residents and citizens of Ireland until the housing shortage has been rectified. (This policy is already in place in Canada and New Zealand to help alleviate these countries’ housing problems).

Reason No 5 - Uncontrolled immigration into our country (Irish residents accounted for roughly one quarter of the 306,000 PPS numbers issued in 2022). Solution - Severely restrict inward migration until the housing shortage is addressed.

Reason No 6 - Houses being rented for AirBnB instead of long term rental. Solution - Incentivise private landlords to rent long term. Disincentivise private landlords to use AirBnB.

Reason No 7 - Lockdowns and vast money printing. Solution - Never again attempt to go down this road of national sabotage.

Reason No 8 - Planning permission to build is too difficult to attain. Solution - Loosen the planning permission process, making it faster and easier.

Reason No 9 - Common sense has gone out the window. Solution - Bring back common sense.

These are a few simple suggestions which, in my opinion, if implemented would really tackle the housing crisis.

If the will in Dáil Éireann to fix the housing crisis was there, these policies would have been implemented already, but unfortunately I don’t think the will is there amongst the vast majority of political representatives anymore. Remember as well, the same parties that are arguing over the eviction ban are also the same parties that agreed unanimously and voted for the extreme measures which caused the need for an eviction ban in the first place.

My last solution now would be for the people of Ireland to install true political representatives in Dáil Éireann, who would implement policies based on common sense rather than nonsense and get rid of the politicians who represent everybody and anybody except the one thing they are meant to represent, the ordinary people of their constituencies.

Yours sincerely, Peter O’Donoghue, Bartlemy.