By Kim O’Leary
Residents of St Helen’s Court in Dun Laoghaire are facing eviction next month after a four-year battle with its corporate landlord.
Sme tenants of the complex of 20 apartments, with 10 currently occupied, have been resisting attempts by the landlord to evict them since early 2017.
The landlord, Mill Street Projects Ltd, has only served eviction notices to eight tenancies. An attempt to evict 10 households would violate the ‘Tyrrelstown Amendment’ meaning if all 10 units were sold the tenants could remain in situ.
Local People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said that the residents at St Helen’s Court are facing homelessness now because the Government had failed to protect tenants like them.
“We warned the Government repeatedly these loopholes – allowing evictions for sale or refurbishment, particularly by corporate landlords – would lead to more homelessness. This is a textbook case of how vulture funds will treat tenants when government fails to protect them,” he said.
One tenant Sean Mitchell has lived at St Helen’s Court for 13 years and is now fighting his fourth eviction attempt.
He told Dublin Gazette that he has lived in Dun Laoghaire all his life and there is ‘nowhere else to go’ for residents like himself to go next month.
“The government are only on the vulture fund side, giving them power to evict people. If they keep leaving the loopholes open for them, we haven’t got a leg to stand on,” he said.
Efforts to contact Mill Street Projects for comment were unsuccessful.
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