Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

If the bank and the receiver decide to sell the property, the tenant can do nothing about it. I am all in favour of the bank continuing to rent to the tenant in situ but the banks are not doing that because the Minister, the Government and the banks have set targets for repossessing properties. With house prices rising, it is worthwhile for the banks to sell properties and reduce the debt on their balance sheets. This problem is known to the Government and in August 2013, it committed to reviewing the laws on rent, receivers and tenants, and Threshold has asked it to do that. Nothing further has been done, however, and we are encountering the resulting human misery and suffering in our clinics. The Minister's own clinics must be dealing with similar issues. I have a large caseload of people who were made homeless because of repossessions by the banks. The Minister will be familiar with the case of Martin and Violet Coyne last year but they are only one of many families in this situation.

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