Residents of apartment block facing mass eviction to hold rally outside Dail

• Published date: 22 November 2022
• Publication title: DublinLive (Ireland)

Residents of Tathony House fear they could end up in emergency accommodation if the eviction plan is carried out due to the dire state of the rental market in the capital. They will be joined by tenants who are also facing mass eviction from apartments in Rathmines and St Helens in Dun Laoghaire

Cllr Madeleine Johansson is one of the people living in Tathony House, Kilmainham, who received an eviction note last month. "I spend a lot of time each day helping constituents with housing problems," the South Dublin County councillor told Dublin Live. "But now I'm facing eviction just like the worried tenants who come to me in my job."

Cllr Johansson has been living in Tathony House with her husband since 2009. They received their eviction notice on 20 October and they're due to move out on 2 June 2023. Both of these dates fall outside the timeframe for the eviction ban that was introduced by the Government a few weeks ago.

There is legislation in place that is supposed to stop these type of mass evictions, she said. However there are exemptions and their landlord is using them, saying he would be making 20 per cent less than the market price if he sold the property with the tenants in it and this would cause him undue hardship.

Ms Johansson will be joining the rally on Wednesday. The tenants are also going to take a case to the Residential Tenancy Board to dispute the cause for eviction.

James O'Toole is another Tathony House resident who will be joining the rally. The landlord handed him the notice in the corridor.

"You just kind of take it," he said. "You just walk away, you go into your flat and then you open up the document and start reading it and then the shock kind of hit me then.

"And then you go on daft.ie or the rental website and you start going, 'Jesus, is there anywhere else where I can live?' And you see a single room, like a bed in Kimmage for €1,800 or a bed in Portobello for €1,600.

"And then the stress starts to kick in. Then you really get worried because you're thinking 'there's nowhere I can afford'. I'm probably going to have to move way out beyond the M50 before I could find something that I can afford.

"So I'm going to have to leave this area, which I grew up in – in Dublin 8 – and then, you're thinking, well, if I move out beyond the M50, my rent could be cheaper. But how do I travel to work?"

Mr O'Toole works near Croke Park as a community worker. He added: "So then you start getting really, really stressed out. And then the first...