Tathony House Landlord Makes A Fortune From Sale

As the Irish Times reports on the sale of Tathony House former tenant James O’Toole writes about how the government has facillitated the greatest housing crisis in living memory so that landlords like Ronan McDonnell can make millions.

Tenants at Tathony House, an old apartment block in Dublin 8, fought an 18 month battle to stay in their homes. Their protests won them an extra year and they got Dublin City Council to offer to buy the block. But the landlord refused to even answer the council’s emails.

The Irish Times reports that Ronan McDonnell made €5,695,000 from the recent sale of the run down building - obviously it’s prime location in the heart of Dublin 8 made it so valuable. You wouldn’t know it from looking inside as the former factory is old, damp and falling apart.

The government lifted the eviction ban on March 31st 2023 leaving the tenants of Tathony House to fight on for months and seeing 19,000 notices issued by greedy landlords.

There are far more people entering emergency accommodation than are leaving it and homeless numbers continue to climb. The reason is simple - the government lifted the eviction ban so landlords like Ronan McDonnell could profit from evictions.

Government after government spent 40 years undermining social housing and now we’re in the hole they dug. Meanwhile Ronan McDonnell and parasites like him are sitting on a mountain of cash.

His family ran Tathony House as a notorious centre for asylum seekers in the 1990s, making £400,000 a year, before he took over and started renting to private tenants making €700,000 a year rent roll.

The campaign by tenants at Tathony House bought enough time that no tenant ended up homeless and the key campaigners are now in council housing. But we shouldn’t have been put through all those months of stress.

We need a mass movement on housing and we need the trade union leaders to get up off their backsides and start mobilising members. If they don’t the huge anger and humilation people feel won’t be directed where it belongs - against the government - but against other poor people.