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A Cork mother of five is facing eviction from her home of 11 years after the property changed hands last year.
Niamh O’Connor told Gript that she has been renting the house in Cork where she lives with her children, the youngest of whom is just six months old.
Niamh says her family were told to vacate the property by the first of April but that they have nowhere to go.
She says she received notice to quit last May and has been unsuccessfully house hunting since then.
She says that although she has applied for over 20 properties there were ‘60 or 70’ other applicants waiting outside some, while she did not receive a response from others.
She said that she had attempted to buy the house she lives in from the previous landlord but that the current owner, who she says wants the house for her son, outbid her by a small margin.
Niamh says that over the course of her tenancy she has had four landlords as the house “kept getting sold”, and that over the years she said spent over €170,000 in rent on the property which she believes is worth somewhere in the region of €275,000.
“The council and banks don’t take that into account,” she said
Niamh says that although she respects the new landlord’s right to deal with her property as she wishes, she bought the house ‘knowing that there was a family living there for the past 10 years’.
Niamh says that she feels there is “no help” available for working people ‘in the middle’ who find themselves in situations like that of her family.
“There’s nothing there,”she said, adding, “I go out to work, I go out to pay taxes, I don’t scrimp off the state,”
“Any scheme that the government roll out, people like me will always be caught between a rock and a hard place,”she said.
Niamh said that she feels unable to work anymore than the 26 to 30 hours a week she already does as it would have a negative impact on her children and that she feels that this or going on social welfare are the only options available to her.
“I’m only one person and I can only give so much,” she said continuing, “I either go and work more which has a big impact on my children’s lives or I give up my work, I give up my job and I stay at home and claim social welfare,”.
She says her partner “goes out to work everyday” and brings home money “to keep the lights on and a roof over his children’s heads,” and that she goes to work in the evenings to do her full-time job.
She says her other children who are 15, 11,10, and 3 know that the family have to leave the house but that they don’t realise the “emotional stress” that this is causing her.
She said that she was told that if her family were placed in emergency accommodation that this would be a hotel room anywhere in the country.
“Wherever I’m told to go in emergency accommodation is where I’ll have to go,” she said.
She said this would mean she would have to leave her job, the children would have to leave school and that “uniforms, books, their friends, everything they know,” would have to change.
“The emotional impact and the mental impact it will have on my kids if I do that will be irreversible.
Niamh said she is in the process of trying to get on Cork County Council’s housing list but that she found attitudes to her situation among certain members of staff ‘rehearsed’.
She said that while she was assured that members of staff understood what the family were going through she felt that they were just seen as names on pieces of paper.”
“They all have to tick a box,” she said, adding, “my kids are not pieces of paper”.
She said that besides the loss of a loved one the loss of your home is the “second deadliest thing that could ever happen to a human,”
“This shouldn’t be happening and I’m not going to let it happen,” she said, adding, “my kids are not going to be treated like that,” whether by “the Irish government” or, “any landlord,” she said.
She says she fears for her children’s wellbeing from this “ordeal”.
She said Ireland is supposed to be a fair society where children can “grow and prosper and be the best people they can possibly be” but that this isn’t being allowed to happen.
She said Irish society “blocks you at every single turn you try and take,” adding, “if you try and better yourself in this country you’re gonna be penalised for it,”
She said that even doctors and nurses in Ireland are facing “their own mental health issues” and that teacher friends of hers are unable to secure mortgages despite having stable jobs.
“I know nurses who have to get onto charities because their mortgage repayments went up, and up, and up,” she said.
She said some of these started off at 1.89% but have risen to around 4.48%, “They’re after tripling ,” she said.
She said many people like this fall into a chasm of being too highly paid to qualify for social housing but not highly paid enough to be approved by banks for a mortgage.
“The system doesn’t work,” she said, “and it won’t work unless actual realistic changes happen,”
She said that the income cap for herself and her partner with their children to be on Cork County Council’s housing list is €47,000 per annum.
“Right now if I was to go to Cork County Council with myself, the five kids, and their dad together as a joint application, I’m €8,000 a year over the income limit,”
She said that in order to meet the requirements she would have to cut her working hours down to about 15 hours per week which she says would impact the amount of food she is able to buy, her ability to pay for her children’s extra curricular activities, her electricity and gas payments, as well as her ability to save money.
‘It would keep me at a substandard level of living which is below the level that’s supposed to be here in Ireland’, she said.
She says she’s not entitled to any social welfare payments and that she feels she is being “penalised” for “going out to work”.
“I’m not entitled to the back to school allowance, I’m not entitled to the fuel allowance, so they’ll take it and they’ll keep on taking it but they won’t give it back to me,” she said.
She said she feels anger at the housing crisis should be directed not at tenants like herself or landlords, but at the Government who she says have taken in hundreds of thousands of people and “promised to house them’.
She said this means that there is “nothing left” for people like her.
Niamh says she has “never asked for help” in her life but that she needs “to scream from the rooftops right now”.
“I need to ask everybody in Ireland to help me,”she said.
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