The eviction a family of five from a flat in Ranelagh, Dublin, on Wednesday highlights the urgent need for legislation in the private rented sector, the Labour Party spokesman on housing, Mr Eamon Gilmore, has said.
"It is a shocking indictment of the Government that the Minister for Housing is prepared to sit by while people like (this) family are thrown out on the street," he said.
He was commenting on the eviction of Mr Krishna Kularajah Ponnudurai, his wife Anulawathi and their three children, from a flat at Woodstock Gardens.
Mr Ponnudurai, who came to Dublin from Sri Lanka 12 years ago, and has since become an Irish citizen, arrived home from a school run on Wednesday morning to find his family's possessions on the doorstep outside.
Mr Gilmore said Labour believed legislation should be introduced which provided for security of tenure and enshrined tenants' rights in law. "There is also a pressing necessity for a Housing Court to arbitrate in such cases and to give evictees their say."
He said that during four years in office the Minister of State with responsibility for housing and urban renewal, Mr Bobby Molloy, and his colleagues "have proved inept in addressing the escalating accommodation crisis, and look most unlikely to change this in the short term that they have left." He added the pictures of yesterday's eviction were "an eye-opening portrayal of what is a daily occurrence in the private rented sector in Dublin".
The case also highlighted the direct contribution which such evictions made to the problem of homelessness in Dublin.
