Eviction ban decision ‘weighed heavily’ on government, minister says

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has said the decision not to extend the ban on evictions “weighed heavily” on government.

Paschal Donohoe accepted that there would be “difficult consequences” as a result of not extending the ban but added that he believed continuing the moratorium would lead to less rental accommodation being available in the future

“The challenges of today would become even harder tomorrow,” Mr Donohoe said.

Speaking on RTE’s Morning Ireland, he said the Government had introduced more than 5,000 new social homes in recent months.

Asked about reports that local authorities in Dublin purchased just 13 out of 400 properties that were offered in recent months under the tenant-in-situ scheme, Mr Donohoe said it had been agreed with the Minister for Housing that more money would be made available to local authorities for the scheme.

“We’ll spare no effort in making sure they’re clear regarding the money that is available to them,” he said.

Mr Donohoe said the budgetary decisions he made on housing were “right” but said he accepted “responsibility for where our country stands”.

However, he said that government delivered on its housing targets last year.

“For December and January, we’ve had more commencement notices, which is new houses being built per month, than we’ve ever had before,” he said.

“But we need to do more, we need to do better,” he added.

Mr Donohoe is expected to bring an updatee National Development Plan to Cabinet soon.

Asked about funding for 58 school building projects that were paused this week, Mr Donohoe said government needed to look at all capital projects and make sure “funding is in place to deliver them all”.

He said he would work with the Minister for Education on the school projects in the coming weeks.

“We’re going ahead with a very ambitious school programme already which has lots of new schools being open at the moment,” he said.

“There are some delays but it is to be expected when you are investing over 12 billion euro in delivering new projects that not every project unfolds in the way we want,” he added.

He said changes in the cost of raw materials and the war in Ukraine provided challenges to delivering projects.