Homeless charities fear floodgates will open on local evictions

Homeless charities are braced a flood of eviction notices in Galway when the Government’s ban on ‘notices to quit’ is lifted this April.

Galway Simon Community has warned that the lifting of the moratorium’s protections for tenants will come when supply has dried-up, as emergency accommodation providers such as hotels and guesthouses will want to return their beds for use by tourists.

Residential Tenancy Board (RTB) figures released this week showed that a total of 286 eviction notices were issued in Galway in July, August and September last year – before the evictions ban kicked-in in October.

And there is now widespread concern among homeless and housing charities that there will be a sharp increase in evictions when the ban ends on March 31.

Karen Golden, CEO of Galway Simon Community, told the Connacht Tribune ‘there is a fear in relation to what’s coming down the tracks’.

“The protections will lift as we go into the tourism season in Galway. Tourism providers – not unreasonably – want their accommodation back over the summer months for their tourism business.

“So all of the protections are going to lift at a time of the year when emergency accommodation is likely to be increasingly difficult to access, and that will add further to the pressures,” she added.

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