MORE Limerick renters will be made homeless if the tenant-in-situ scheme is not properly funded.
That was the warning from local Sinn Féin TD Maurice Quinlivan, during a debate on his party’s Dáil motion on the homeless prevention measure.
The motion urged the government to properly fund the tenant-in-situ scheme and allow local authorities maximum flexibility on how it is operated.
“Since April 2023, the social housing tenant-in-situ scheme has saved around 2,500 households, a number of them here in Limerick, from being made homeless. Families with children, couples, and single people, including pensioners, have been prevented from becoming homeless as councils were able to buy their private rental homes,” Deputy Quinlivan said.
“Since January, this support has been suspended to new applications due to the failure of the outgoing government to agree funding allocations for 2025.”
Deputy Quinlivan told the Dáil that in Limerick “there are 107 acquisitions on hold from last year and with a capital funding allocation for second hand acquisitions greatly reduced, it is estimated that only around 20 of these will be preceded with”.
“This means that there is no capacity to purchase any future properties where notice to quit orders have been issued.
“This leaves 85 households whose tenants will become homeless unless the government provides clarity, ensuring that the scheme is maintained and properly resourced going forward.”
In addition, Deputy Quinlivan told the Dáil that there are no refurbishment costs assigned to acquisitions, so any property purchased in a condition short of turnkey ready cannot be prepared for use for those in need of housing.
Addressing the government performance on housing, he said: “When the government was formed, there was a lot of bombastic rhetoric about getting to grips with the housing crisis and yet here they fall at the very first hurdle.”
“Any funding cuts to the social housing tenant-in-situ scheme, or restrictions on how it is operated, will put more renters at serious risk of being made homeless.”
In response, Minister for Housing James Browne said that homelessness remains a key challenge for the government, which is “striving to achieve our housing targets through all possible avenues, increasing the supply of social and cost-rental housing and addressing supply shortages in the private rental sector are all ultimately concerned with reducing and eliminating the risk of homelessness”.
