Despite denials, emails suggest data on notices to quit was shared with the Minister for Housing before the eviction ban was lifted

Ahead of lifting the eviction ban, a Department of Housing official in early February sought and was sent data for notices to quit, with the specific aim of referencing them in a paper for the Minister of Housing.

Records released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request seeking correspondence between officials relating to the data also mention a January briefing note on notices to quit.

The contents of that briefing note weren’t released on the grounds, among others, that the record “has been, or is proposed to be, submitted to the Government for its consideration by a Minister of the Government or the Attorney General and was created for that purpose”, says the FOI response.

The documents raise questions about whether briefings citing data around notices to quit were sent to the minister, despite his and his department’s denials that the data had been shared with him by officials.

On 7 March, Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien had indicated to reporters that he didn’t know how many people had been subject to notices to quit, ahead of the ban on no-fault evictions being lifted.

“So you don’t know at this point how many people are actually now subject to eviction notices?” asked Gavan Reilly, political correspondent for Virgin Media News.

Said O’Brien: “No, well, the RTB [Residential Tenancies Board] assess that data. Because they receive, they receive copies of the notice to quit and they’re the ones who publish that data. And we’ll have that very shortly.”

The suggestion in emails that the data was to be passed up the chain to the minister appears to contradict later statements made by both the Department of Housing and a spokesperson for the minister.

“It is not uncommon for the RTB to share preliminary data at official level which is then subject to further analysis and verification. This data would not have been shared with the Minister,” said a Department of Housing spokesperson in April.

A spokesperson for Darragh O’Brien gave the same statement to media like Virgin Media News and the Irish Daily Mail, those outlets reported.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Department of Housing gave a similar response to queries around how the correspondence released suggests the figures were shown to the minister.

The figures provided by the Residential Tenancies Board were preliminary, they said, and the correspondence reflects that. “Preliminary/unverified data would not have been shared with the Minister.”

O’Brien didn’t respond to queries about the correspondence and data, sent on Tuesday via email.

Papers for the Minister

On 30 January, an official in the private rental markets section of the Department of Housing sent an email to a colleague with a Word doc attachment titled “Briefing Notices of Termination Q3 2022”, shows an email released under FOI.

The “briefing” itself wasn’t released though, on several grounds. Among them, the grounds that it “has been, or is proposed to be, submitted to the Government for its consideration by a Minister of the Government or the Attorney General and was created for that purpose”.

Meanwhile, other emails show a department official gathering notice-to-quit data specifically for a paper for the minister.

On 30 January, another official in the Department of Housing, David Kelly, was putting together a paper “on acquisitions” and wrote to a colleague with a query.

Department officials had already in January been sent detailed data showing the notices to quit issued by landlords in the third quarter of 2022. He was looking for the fourth quarter figures.

“Can we say we understand similar figure for Q4 in paper to Minister?” said Kelly, a principal officer in the housing finance and delivery coordination section.

“Yes David, it’s OK to say that,” said Catherine Comer, a department colleague in the private rental division.

RTB officials had shared preliminary and unvalidated data for notices to quit in the last quarter of 2022 with Department of Housing officials in mid-January.

Emails show that Kelly was still eager to get the final Q4 figures from the RTB in early February. His colleagues were pressing the RTB to send them over.

On the morning of 7 February, Kelly wrote again to Comer: “Do we have Q4 yet? (doing paper for Minister so need to ref Q4 if available)”.

He didn’t mean to be pushy, he said in a later email. “Just want to reference data if available. If not available, I’ll just base paper on what we do have,” he said.

At that point, the RTB hadn’t yet sent the detailed data for the Q4 notices to quit to Department of Housing officials.

But they did later that day, and the data was sent on to Kelly that evening, emails show. “Please note they may be revised slightly following further verification,” an email says.

The Department of Housing didn’t directly address a query sent yesterday about whether or not Kelly sent on a paper in February referencing the Q3 and Q4 notice-to-quit figures to the minister, as the emails suggest was intended.

Also included in the released records is a “speaking points” document entitled “Q4 2022 Notices to Terminate received by the RTB”, which the schedule of records says dates from 23 February.

The document opens by noting the 4,329 notices of termination issued in Q4 2022.

It’s unclear what exactly was in the document as of 23 February. The version released seems to have been updated in parts, with info added to it about measures and motions in March for example.

O’Brien didn’t respond to a query sent yesterday by email asking when this “speaking points” document was shared with him.

Making it Public

Housing spokesperson for the Social Democrats Cian O’Callaghan said that he doesn’t believe the earlier statements from the department and O’Brien’s spokesperson that the data was shared between officials and not with the minister.

“The correspondence shows that it was being gathered to give to the minister,” he says. “It clearly shows that the department and the minister had this Q3 and Q4 data a full month in advance of this decision.”

O’Callaghan said that data around notices to quit should have been shared with the public when it was available. “I think it shows a level of contempt towards the general public not to share it.”

“I just think the way they have handled this data is very cynical,” he said. “Why were they holding it back for so long? I don’t see how they can justify holding it back.”

“The public pays for this data to be gathered and its public interest to release it,” said O’Callaghan.

In early April, Tánaiste Micheál Martin said it was “outrageous” to suggest that government had delayed or suppressed the publication of RTB data around notices to quit, the Irish Times and the Press Association both reported.