HOUSING HAS BEEN the defining issue of the better part of the last 20 years, shaping the lived experience of multiple generations and continues to cast a long shadow over our collective future.
Housing precarity and scarcity now sit at the heart of many of the social challenges we confront in Ireland, from poverty and inequality to mental health, safety, addiction, education and community cohesion.
After spending years looking at drug policy through a public health lens, it was an obvious step in my mind to also now look at a public health approach to the use of eviction in an already struggling society.
Over the past 18 months, I have received a growing number of heartbreaking pleas from families facing eviction by Local Authorities and Approved Housing Bodies. Many are already struggling with poverty, disability, family breakdown, addiction, ill health or the daily pressures of raising children in an increasingly precarious society.
In a country experiencing record homelessness, it is difficult to understand why State-backed housing providers would choose a response that further destabilises families and communities rather than an intervention, however long and complex it is, that will avoid compounding harm.
As a public representative, I can say with confidence that housing dominates political interactions. A large portion of the contacts I receive relates directly or indirectly to housing. It is an all-consuming issue. It affects whether people can build a life, start a family, pursue education, leave unsafe situations, recover from addiction, return home from abroad, reduce recidivism, or simply feel secure in their place in the world.
‘Eviction epidemic’
Last November, the Department of Finance published its assessment of the economic and fiscal challenges facing the State over the next 40 years. The report makes for sobering reading. It warns that the housing crisis is likely to persist for another 15 years and acknowledges that the coming decade represents a critical window for meaningful intervention before our fiscal flexibility diminishes.
In reality, the impact of the housing crisis on people will last for generations. So imagine a state knowing this, yet still, at the local authority level, standing over the evictions of families for as little as 12,000 euros—the math isn’t mathing.
The contradiction reflects a deeper problem in Irish housing policy. Following the financial crash, successive governments stepped back from direct public provision and increasingly relied on the private market to meet housing need.
More than a decade later, homelessness is at record levels, affordability continues to deteriorate, and local authorities are still pursuing evictions against some of the most vulnerable households in the State.
I heard the term “eviction epidemic” used once to describe eviction rates in the United States, which made me think about how local authorities could respond to rent arrears with an epidemic mindset.
When an outbreak occurs, public health authorities pull together. They do not wait until entire communities are affected beyond repair. They move to identify the source of the outbreak, understand who is most at risk and implement measures that protect public health and, in turn, society as a whole.
Yet when it comes to housing, we have become accustomed to responding very differently.
If we were to approach Ireland’s housing and looming eviction crisis through the same lens used to investigate an epidemic, the scale of our collective failure would become more apparent than it already is.
The first step in any outbreak is to confirm that it exists.
That stage is long behind us. Rising rents, soaring house prices, record homelessness, growing waiting lists, and increasing numbers of people facing or experiencing eviction have already confirmed what communities have known for years.
The second step is to establish a case definition and identify who is affected.
But unlike disease outbreaks, our official statistics often capture only a fraction of those affected. We count people in emergency accommodation, yet thousands more remain hidden from view: couch surfing, living in overcrowded homes, staying in refuges, trapped in insecure tenancies, or unable to leave their parents’ homes. As with an underreported illness, the official figures only partially reveal the problem.
The third step is to identify patterns of transmission.
Public health experts ask how a disease spreads. We should ask the same question about the impact of evictions and housing insecurity.
Contagion
An eviction does not simply affect one household. It spreads outwardly. A family forced from their home may move into overcrowded accommodation with relatives or into state-funded emergency accommodation, placing pressure elsewhere.
Children experience disruption to education. Stress and anxiety affect mental health. Relationships break down. Recovery from addiction becomes more complex. Domestic violence survivors face barriers to leaving unsafe environments. Entire communities experience instability, and the families I have advocated for shared that they experience shame and fear.
Housing insecurity is contagious in the sense that its consequences ripple through families, schools, healthcare services, social protection systems and local communities. My friend once described a different issue to me, like a mobile hanging above a baby’s cot, once you touch one, the whole set moves. That analogy stands here, too.
The fourth step is to identify risk factors.
In any epidemic, some populations are more vulnerable than others. The same is true here.
People on lower incomes, one-parent households, migrants, people with disabilities, those exiting care, individuals in recovery and communities already experiencing poverty are disproportionately exposed. The housing crisis does not affect everyone equally. It follows existing fault lines of inequality and deepens them.
The fifth step is to implement control measures.
In public health, once the causes of an outbreak are understood, authorities intervene. They do not simply monitor the situation while hoping market forces resolve the problem. Yet this is often how housing policy has operated. Rather than directly providing the remedy at the required scale, the State has increasingly relied on market actors.
The sixth step is to evaluate whether interventions are working.
Here, the evidence is difficult to ignore. If the objective is social and affordable housing, secure tenancies and declining homelessness, then the persistence and worsening of the crisis must force us to confront an uncomfortable reality. The treatment is not working.
Preparing for future challenges
And finally, public health authorities communicate findings and prepare for future outbreaks.
The lesson from Ireland’s housing crisis is not simply that we need more homes, although we clearly do. The lesson is that housing must be recognised as essential social infrastructure, every bit as important to societal wellbeing as healthcare, education and public safety. That means not just counting success in the number of units built, but also how it kept people in their homes. Recognising eviction is a much greater cost to the state than an unpaid bill.
Because housing insecurity behaves like a social epidemic, it spreads harm far beyond the individual household. It creates vulnerability, weakens resilience and places enormous strain on public systems.
The challenge before us is to address the underlying conditions that allow the epidemic to persist. That requires leadership, urgency and a willingness to place human wellbeing and social cohesion above financial return. It also requires us to recognise the hypocrisy of using eviction for rent arrears owed to the state, and replacing it with a more costly bill to the state for emergency accommodation.
The roots of the crisis are well known. Following the financial crash and the austerity measures that followed, public housing construction was dramatically reduced. Rather than rebuilding the State’s capacity to provide homes directly, successive governments increasingly turned to the private market to bridge the gap. The private sector was asked not only to build homes but also to provide emergency accommodation, social housing through long-term leasing arrangements and homelessness services through schemes such as HAP.
More than a decade later, the results are clear: broken lives and upward wealth transfer.
The reliance on market-led solutions has not resolved the housing crisis. In many respects, it has deepened it. The strongest evidence of policy failure is that the crisis continues to worsen despite years of interventions designed to incentivise private provision.
Part of the problem lies in the assumption that the interests of the market and society naturally align. They do not.
The consequences can be seen across society. According to research published by the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, the annual cost of accommodating a family in emergency accommodation can reach €180,000. Imagine the number of community workers and family support projects you could employ with that to work specifically with affected families.
In 2024 alone, emergency accommodation cost the state €305 million. This represents an extraordinary expenditure of public money while families remain trapped in insecurity and instability. Imagine what could be achieved if those resources were directed towards secure, sustainable housing solutions instead.
It also requires us to confront a fundamental contradiction. The State is willing to evict a family over rent arrears, only to assume a far greater financial liability when that same family enters emergency accommodation, both in the immediate term and over time due the impacts of losing one’s home, community and safety. It is difficult to present this as either sound social policy or sound economic policy
Lynn Ruane is an independent senator.