Renting? Check this website first.

A new online database is exposing Ireland’s landlords with the most evictions on their record. The project, developed by researchers and members of Community Action Tenants Union (CATU), aims to bring transparency and accountability to the rental sector and help tenants understand the risks they face.

The website was launched last week but has been in the works since November 2023. It uses publicly available data from the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) to track both legal and illegal evictions across the country.

Unlike other tenant rights resources, this database goes further by actually naming landlords involved in evictions. It covers both legal evictions—where tenants are removed following an RTB ruling—and illegal ones, which include landlords changing locks, intimidating tenants, or kicking them out without following proper legal procedures. We spoke to Fiadh Tubridy, a researcher at Maynooth University involved in the project and an active member of CATU, about the new site. “In one sense the site is there to expose some of the actors who are most directly profiting from this kind of exploitation, and those who are often violent towards tenants.”

In cases of illegal evictions, the RTB can issue determination orders against landlords and, in some cases, order them to pay damages. However, enforcement for this remains weak. “The RTB doesn’t have the power to directly enforce its orders—it’s up to the tenant to bring the case to court if the landlord doesn’t comply,” Tubridy explains. “That’s a huge barrier. A lot of tenants don’t have the time, resources, or legal support to go through the courts.”

At present, there is no system in place that prevents a landlord who has carried out multiple illegal evictions from continuing to be a landlord. This website instead aims to bring accountability by compiling and sharing the public information.

In a section of the website titled, Top Evictor Profiles, people can see which landlords or letting agents have evicted the most, and the details on these evictions. A notable profile includes Noel Martin Snr & Pat Martin. The site describes that the brothers are active in Monaghan, Laois, and Offaly. “The Martin brothers particularly dislike returning their tenants’ deposits, with 15 separate RTB cases resulting in them being ordered to repay deposits to their former tenants,” the website reads. “The RTB has also ruled in 10 separate cases that they sent invalid notices of termination, i.e., illegal eviction notices.”

The website also highlights that in 2021, Noel Martin Snr was fined €1500 for assaulting a female tenant in Carrickmacross, quoting directly from the report “attempting to pull off her hijab, shouting and demanding that she give him his “f***ing rent.””

Other prolific offenders include the Irish Residential Properties Limited, responsible for 128 evictions; Paul Howard, a Dublin-based landlord responsible for 9 evictions and intimidation and harassment of his tenants; and Dublin-based landlord Marc Godart, who evicted a tenant who objected to CCTV surveillance inside the property.

The database is designed to shift the power imbalance between landlords and tenants. While property owners have long been able to screen potential tenants through background checks and rental history reports, renters rarely have access to equivalent information about their landlords.

“If you’re renting somewhere and you see that your landlord has a history of evictions, that’s useful to know,” Tubridy says. “This helps people advocate for themselves, challenge notices, or even organize collectively with other tenants.”

With the potential end of rent pressure zones and growing uncertainty for Irish renters, this database arrives at a crucial moment. Although the desperation present in the Irish rental market right now often means that some tenants don’t have much choice in who they rent from, this body of research empowers renters through access to information, which could spark some accountability in the rental market.

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