Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan has criticised her party leader Eamon Ryan over the end of the eviction ban.
In a fiery interview on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne, the Dublin Central TD said that there was no one representing Green Party policies or values at the leaders' meeting on Monday evening.
This meeting was attended by Minister Ryan, as well as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Tánaiste Micheál Martin. Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien also attended.
READ MORE: Evictions ban to end at the end of the month after tense Cabinet meeting.
A decision was made at the meeting that the eviction moratorium would end on March 31 as initially planned. It was further discussed at Tuesday morning’s Cabinet meeting.
Ms Hourigan had previously called for the eviction moratorium to be extended.
She told RTÉ that it was the “wrong decision” to end the ban and it was meant to act as a “sticking plaster so that we could do radical surgery”. She said this had not been done.
She also said that there was no one in the room representing Green Party policies or values, despite Minister Ryan’s attendance.
She argued: “You have the three men in the room making this decision and then bringing the decision out.
“I think you're really relying on somebody to reflect or to talk about what your policies actually are in the room.
“Obviously, the Government is led by Fine Gael Taoiseach. I suspect this process of putting the investment interests of people who have two or three homes ahead of the basic needs of people who have none suits Fine Gael fairly well.
“But it doesn't suit the Green Party and I think we need to be clear about that.
“I haven’t spoken to Eamon [Ryan] in the last few days so I don’t know his thinking on this.
“This measure is not in line with party policy.”
When asked if she would vote against the eviction ban, Ms Hourigan said that there “unfortunately” was no vote, as she pointed out that she had previously voted against the Government on previous issues. She lost the party whip last May when she voted in favour of a Sinn Féin motion on the National Maternity Hospital.
She added: “What I can do is speak to what our policy actually is and what I believe, what I hope I genuinely hope is actually what members want.
“Members create our policy. We're a very grassroots party. Members have created a policy and recently reaffirmed their commitment to an eviction ban where it's appropriate during a crisis.”
The decision to end the eviction moratorium has also caused outrage among the opposition.
People Before Profit’s Richard Boyd-Barrett described the decision as “absolutely inhuman and shameful”.
He said: “What the government has done today is consign thousands and thousands of vulnerable people to a terrifying situation. They are being made homeless when they may not even be able to get emergency accommodation and there are certainly no other alternatives out there.
“It really suggests this government are dancing to the tune of property developers and speculators and corporate landlords and they don't give a damn about ordinary people who are suffering terrible consequences in terms of being made homeless.”
His party colleague Mick Barry advised that any renter who is facing being evicted into homelessness should not just “walk away”.
He said: “Stand your ground. Refuse to go. You can overhold.
“There would be a case at the Residential Tenancies Board [RTB] that would be the next step. It would take some while to get there.
“It is better to break the law than to break the poor.”
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