Today we’re delighted to share some of the outputs from one of last year’s “Right to the Discipline” grant-funded projects. Fiadh Tubridy (Maynooth University Department of Geography) reports on the brilliant work of the project “Data for Tenant Organising: The Community Action Tenants Union Eviction Database”…

The CATU Eviction Database project is an initiative undertaken by members of the Community Action Tenants Union Ireland to gather and analyse information about evictions across the island of Ireland. This built on previous data activist projects undertaken within the Irish housing movement including the Slumleaks website and a guide for CATU members on how to research landlords’ business interests and property portfolios. The eviction database project has involved gathering data through analysis of cases dealt with by the Residential Tenancies Board between 2015 and 2024. The research group used this data to gather detailed information about legal and illegal evictions and identify failures of regulation and enforcement that allow evictions to take place on such a widespread scale. With the support of a grant from the Antipode Foundation “Right to the Discipline” programme, the eviction database working group have put together a website and report to share the findings from the research and bring public attention to the scale of the eviction crisis. Topevictors.ie includes maps of legal and illegal evictions and detailed profiles of some of the most prolific evictors in the country. The report, “Eviction Nation”, provides detailed figures and analysis regarding evictions in Ireland over the past decade. It identifies the different business models adopted by small and large/corporate landlords while highlighting that both involve evictions and consequent widespread suffering and disruption of tenants’ lives. “Eviction Nation” is available online, and limited run of print copies are on sale from Connolly Books, Dublin, with all proceeds raised going to CATU.