Explaining the move, councillor Daithí Doolan said “the Tenant In Situ scheme has been very successful in preventing hundreds of families ending up homeless in Dublin. Last year alone over 300 households benefited from the scheme. The scheme allowed Dublin City Council buy the properties from landlords who were evicting tenants, allowing the tenant to remain on as council tenants.”
“Despite its success, Minister for Housing James Browne is threatening to reduce funding and tighten up criteria which will have a hugely negative impact on people facing no fault evictions. This is a mean and vindicative response to a truly human crisis.”
Doolan noted that the recent homeless figures showed that 70% of all people in homeless services in Ireland were in Dublin and commented “if the Minister had any understanding of this crisis, he would have reintroduced the Tenant In Situ scheme and granted adequate funding to Dublin City Council to carry on with this scheme.”
“To highlight the crisis facing Dublin, Sinn Féin are calling on the Lord Mayor to convene a special meeting of Dublin City Council to debate the issue and to urge the Minister not to impose any new restrictions on the Tenant In Situ scheme, or reductions in funding to the vital homeless prevention measure.”
“We are particularly concerned that the capital allocation for 2025 will be less than the final spend on the scheme in 2024; that refurbishment costs will be excluded; that an arbitrary 2 year in receipt of social housing support rule will be applied to properties; that single people and couples without children could be excluded from the scheme.
Doolan expressed concern that Minister Browne will sign off on the measure by the end of March, and he said “we are urging him to provide Dublin City Council with the maximum amount of flexibility on the operation of the scheme and adequate funding to support tenants at risk of homelessness.”
“We will be requesting that the mayor writes to the Minister for Housing urging him not to make more adults and children homelessness by approving any restrictions to the operation of the Tenant-In-Situ scheme or reductions in funding to this vital homeless prevention measure.”
Sinn Féin’s measure received cross-party support.