Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief, but it would be wrong of us as a committee not to give a small amount of time to the Bill such that public understands what it is we are doing here today. I am not debating the Bill; I just want to make two comments on it. I will debate the Bill when it comes to the House next week, if that is the outcome of today's vote.

There is a proposal that for those tenants who are in arrears because of Covid-19 income loss and who currently have protection of notice to quit or rent increase that if and when the 5 km restriction is lifted they would continue to have that protection until July. The big question is why it is only being extended to July. Given most of those workers will not be back to work this year, why is it not being extended beyond July? We have not had an opportunity to scrutinise with the officials why that date, arbitrary as it is, was chosen as opposed to any other date.

Section 2 of the Bill removes a vital protection from all other renters who are in rent arrears. The effect of the passage of this Bill would be that they would lose that protection and notices to quit could ensue. I am not so sure why renters, whom we have been protecting until now, would lose that protection. It makes no sense to me. I proposed a compromise yesterday, which I want to put back on the table today. Given the need to continue the protections for the group of renters - approximately 700 of them - under section 1, I ask that the committee would agree to allow that section of the Bill to proceed but that we would ask the Minister to withdraw section 2 because there is not the same time urgency in regard to that section and come back to it through proper pre-legislative scrutiny. That would allow us to provide the protections that are urgently needed if the level 5, 5 km restriction is lifted in April and that albeit small group of renters who are benefiting from it would get it for another couple of months. It would allow the committee to scrutinise why the Minister is proposing to remove a protection from all other categories of renters who are in rent arrears when the purpose of that does not make sense at this time. I am willing to compromise on this proposal.