Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Not surprisingly, the Minister is not able to answer the question as to what I say to Jacqueline, Richard and their two children who are facing homelessness because they are being evicted by their landlord on the grounds of sale, which the Government allows. In the middle of a housing emergency, which the Minister does not want to acknowledge, he is allowing evictions. What do I say to them? Where do they go? They cannot afford average rents of €2,400 per month. They would be lucky to find somewhere at that cost in Dún Laoghaire. This amounts to €28,000 a year just for rent before paying for anything else and after tax. This is what people need to find somewhere. Where do they go?

I have cited only this case but it is true of the 35 families in Tathony House and the 25 families affected in Rathmines. It is also true of Stella who was in with us today and several thousand more people. The Government acknowledged that deferment of notice to quit, which, by the way, does not help Jacqueline because she had received the notice to quit prior to its introduction and could potentially be evicted before Christmas, means evictions will come in a flood afterwards. Families will have nowhere to go. We will then pay €200 million to accommodate them in substandard emergency accommodation. The State will pay for this anyway except the people, children and families affected will have to go through the misery, trauma, hardship and hurt of going into emergency accommodation or being on the side of the street. Eventually we will have to give them an answer but at present the Government is saying it does not have an answer. Give us an answer. Our answer is to control the rents and stop the evictions now. Even if the Minister will not do it, in the long term he should intervene to stop people being made homeless by making rents affordable and stopping people being evicted.

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