A mother and three children made homeless by a greedy landlord have a new house after public outcry.
The businesswoman told a meeting this week how her family were forced out last month after their rent was hiked from €1,050 to €1,600.
The Co Louth mother, who is in her 30s, said she works hard and has never been behind on her payments – but the increase was too much.
She told the meeting: “I went from being the happiest woman in Drogheda, with my own little business, to being homeless with three children in the space of a week. Can you believe it?”
Louth County Council placed the family in emergency shelter, where they had to share one room in a B&B for more than three weeks.
But after a wave of criticism at Monday’s meeting at Barlow House in Drogheda, the local authority was able to find more suitable accommodation for the family.
The mother was relieved on Thursday after learning a house has been found for her and her children – aged two, four and 15 – by the Peter McVerry Trust.
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Her family will now have their own sitting room and bedrooms, along with a communal kitchen.
Their ordeal was another low for Ireland’s housing scandal in which landlords can get around Rent Pressure Zone caps of 4% by saying they want or need to renovate properties.
Meanwhile, Anthony Moore, a Fianna Fail candidate for the Drogheda Urban constituency, said the town is heading for a homeless crisis. He claimed many of the hard-working people he has spoken with during his election campaign have said they would be forced on to the streets if their landlord put up their rent by just €200 or €300 a month.
The barrister added: “We just need to start building more houses. On the campaign trail I’ve been meeting a lot of people who are on the cusp of homelessness, and this is a terrible thing.”
Mr Moore said planning permission has been granted for the construction of thousands of properties on the northside of the town – but funding for the project and the proposed Northern Cross Route have yet to materialise.
He added: “If we don’t get the 4,000 houses built, we’re going to have a huge crisis in Drogheda as regards housing.
“The town is expanding at a shocking rate – it’s a place where people want to live, who have been forced out of places like Dublin, and there’s no housing supply.
“So we need to get the housing supply working in Drogheda.”
