Ireland: Dublin Tenants Association protests

A small protest was held by a grassroots tenant-support group on Wednesday afternoon outside the head offices of the State’s largest private landlord.

Members of the Dublin Tenants Association (DTA) – which advocates on behalf of tenants in the private rental market – picketed outside the offices of Ires Reit on Grand Canal Dock, ahead of the launch later this month of The Maple in Sandyford, the firm’s latest development.

The association protested over what it called “escalating rents” and “the wider issue of Government-supported vulture-fund activity in Dublin’s crisis-hit housing market”.

Ires Reit (Irish Residential Properties Real Estate Investment Trust) currently owns about 2,400 properties in the Republic, making it the country’s second-largest landlord, after the State.

The property management fund has acquired at least half of its properties from Nama.

Patrick Nelis, a tenant in one of the fund’s Tallaght properties, said he had suffered two attempted evictions, both of which were found to be invalid by the Residential Tenancies Board.

Published by: Irish Times (5 July 2017)
Written by: Séan Dunne