Taoiseach Leo Varadkar claims he didn’t know 7,000 households faced eviction after the government lifted the eviction ban.
He said it wouldn’t have made a difference if ministers were aware of the figures. Varadkar stressed that the ban still would’ve been lifted, despite thousands of people now facing homelessness in Ireland.
Cabinet agreed to lift the ban last month.
Responding to claims they knew about the current figures, Varadkar said they did not have exact numbers.
According to breakingnews.ie, he said:
“We didn’t have the exact numbers, but certainly the data that was coming to us from the Department of Housing at the Cabinet subcommittee.
“We did know that there was a significant increase in notices to quit.
He added, “We didn’t have the exact numbers, but we did know that there had been a significant increase in the notices to quit.”
“I want to make very, very clear, there will be people here who will try and create a false impression that if we had had these exact numbers, that we would have made a different decision.”
Varadkar stressed that Cabinet still would have agreed to lift the ban even if they knew the exact figures.
“One of the (reasons), why we decided not to extend the eviction ban, was precisely because there was an acceleration of landlords leaving the market.
“The number of notices to quit was increasing,” he stressed.
Varadkar claims if they kept the eviction ban in place for another few months then it would’ve caused even bigger problems.
7,000 terminations will take place in the coming months after the eviction ban was lifted.
