Thank you for joining me for your weekly edition of Housing Crisis Update.  For the podcast version, click here.

 

Master of None

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Mary Carolan at The Irish Times reports that debt cases are to be removed from the Master of the High Court.

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Master Edmund Honohan, who has been a consistent critic of various banks and funds, deals with up to 200 cases a week involving claims over debts.

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Early last year Mr Honohan said he had said he had drawn up a bill to assist those facing repossession who he said were before his court on a daily basis.

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He had also described advice given by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar that people facing repossession should avail of the Abhaile service as a “sick joke”, saying it was “merely a voucher for €200 worth of legal advice before you go to the Circuit Court”.

Debt campaigner David Hall said the decision was a bad day for debtors and that Mr Honohan has been one of the few officials to speak the truth about banks’ behaviour.

 

Indirect provision

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Noel Baker reports that the Reception and Integration Agency which houses the 6,355 people in Direct Provision in Ireland has had to access emergency bed spaces in hotels since last September, due to insufficient capacity. Further driving up the numbers were delays in taking decisions on applications for asylum, an increase in the number of people seeking asylum and the effect of the housing crisis.

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The Irish Refugee Council have said there are 700 people in direct provision who have secured the right to stay in Ireland but can’t move on, because of a lack of available accommodation or the means to secure it. 

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CEO Nick Henderson argued that the Government would have to secure more accommodation to address the shortfall caused by the crisis and “direct or indirect racism or discrimination" when those granted asylum try to access to private rentals.

 

Overcrowdsourcing

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Aisling Kenny at RTÉ reports on figures obtained from Dublin City Council which show hundreds of people living in overcrowded social housing units across the capital.

In one case, eleven people were living in a two-bedroom home, while in three separate cases twelve people squeezed into three-bedroom homes.

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In stark contrast, there are more than 800 three-bedroom homes and more than 100 four-bedroom homes across the city with just one person living in them.

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Mike Allen of Focus Ireland said more options need to be created for people, pointing to a need for “single-bedroom units … in areas where traditionally there has only been three or four-bedroom units, so people can stay in the same area.”

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Mick Gaslight-Bae

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Michael Clifford reports on an intervention by Michael Healy-Rae in the debate over the Residential Tenancies Bill, which will provide some protections for tenants.

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The TD who first became a landlord at the age of 19, said that landlords were being “criminalised” and “demonised” in the bill.

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Clifford calls the language hysterical, saying there is a need to rebalance the rights of tenants, that housing is not an issue to be left to the whims of the market, pointing to clientelism in the planning process and the consequent effect on the price of land as the biggest obstacles to a solution to the housing crisis.

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Clifford goes on to recommend implementation of the Kenny Report, which suggested that rezoned land should be valued at the agricultural rate, plus 25%.

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The Kenny Report has been bounced around the courts and government departments since it was first presented to cabinet in 1973.

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