The Government should re-introduce the eviction ban this winter, the Labour Party has said. 

Last year, an eviction ban began on October 30th and ended on March 31st. 

Since then, the level of homelessness has broken new records and Senator Mark Wall said there is an “urgent need” for it to be re-introduced. 

“Other countries have a winter truce or eviction ban,” he said. 

“Every Government or NGO has been out on this, saying they’re looking for protection for the most vulnerable in our society.  

“When you look, we actually have, at the moment, 3,699 children in homelessness. 

“It just shows the urgent need for such a ban, to give that certainty, to give that security.”

A tent for someone homeless by the Grand Canal waterway in Dublin, Ireland.

Senator Wall conceded the Government “are not considering this” and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has previously expressed scepticism about the impact of eviction bans. 

Speaking in the Dáil in May, Mr Varadkar said he had “no ideological objection” to eviction bans but his experience in Government had turned him against them.

“At best it [an eviction ban] reduces homelessness in the short-term but it probably doesn’t even do that,” he said. 

“What it does do is make it worse in the medium-term; when you lift the ban, you’ve a glut of eviction notices that then get affected and then [in] the long-term it makes it even worse - again. 

“Because you have fewer people willing to offer properties to rent in the private rental market.” 

An eviction ban was also introduced by the Government during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Main image: A homeless person on the street in Dublin, 11-01-2017. Image: Leon Farrell/RollingNews