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

I apologise. A vulture fund and property speculator got hold of it. It first made attempts to ratchet up the rents by approximately 60%. That was resisted by the tenants with our support. It moved on after that to try to evict everybody on the basis of substantial refurbishment. The residents resisted it. That was successful. It is good that they are still there but many of the residents were so worn down and traumatised by the experience that they just left. Now there are just ten tenants in the place. The big fear that they have, given the previous record of this property investor, is that once it drops to nine, they can move on, because sale is a grounds for eviction. There are now, disgracefully, about nine units just sitting empty, but refurbishments are being done to allow the company to increase the rent and it will almost certainly sell it on. People phone me every few weeks to say that something is happening and to ask whether they are facing eviction, because there have been two attempts to drive them out. This Bill does not deal with that and it should. That picture is replicated across the country. I put that to the Minister. I will not delay. We will discuss some of these issues on an amendment-by-amendment basis further down the line but I think it is a missed opportunity and there is a failure to recognise the emergency situation that we are in.