Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

These are the unintended consequences of this proposed legislation. One would end up hurting more people and the landlords could still sell, with tenantsin situ. What happens if a young couple buys the house with tenants in situ? The young couple has the right under section 34 of the Act to serve a notice to quit and to move into that home. If the tenant says "No" the young couple could end up paying for a very expensive mortgage and rent since they cannot move into their new home. This couple, who may want to start their own family, would then have to go through a very lengthy procedure because we have very strong protections in place for tenants, and the couple are now landlords when they never wanted to be. They are now trying to evict people out of a home when they never wanted to do that. All they wanted to do was buy their first home and start a family. These are the unintended consequences that risk doing more harm than good in proposed legislation that does not think about the wider potential impacts it could have on the sector.

It does not mean that we do not do any more or that we do not ask why something has happened in the last month, for example. When we were discussing the rent Bill over the last year we spoke about using it to make as many improvements as we could. I really appreciate the support of the House and of the joint Oireachtas committee on the Bill, and their working with me to get it through as quickly as possible but also making sure it has the correct scrutiny, because when it is law, it is the law. We do not want to miss a trick on this.

We can extend the notice periods for people, as we are proposing to do, when a notice to quit is served. This will help because we know that the longer a period people have in which to find new accommodation, the greater chance they have of finding accommodation or of being able to engage with local authority services such as the place finder service to get new accommodation.

We also know that we can better enforce section 34. We are giving extra resources to the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, and we are going to build on those resources again next year as part of a change management programme, so we know we can give greater powers around enforcement to make sure landlords are not evading their responsibilities where they seek to do so. We can also help the RTB to police the rent caps independently and to take that burden away from tenants who may find themselves in a difficult position if they want to challenge their landlord and fear it may have a negative consequence for the tenant's ability to stay in the property beyond the period that had already been agreed.

We know we can do all these things and will do them in the rent Bill. Further amendments will come to the Cabinet on Tuesday, which will then be published and shared with the committee. We can then debate those and how to help make the improvements.

Meanwhile, as we seek to ensure greater protections for people who are renting and in housing insecurity, we will continue to build more homes. One out of every four homes home built last year was a social housing home. We will continue to increase the stock of social housing by any means possible and not let ideology get in the way. We will acquire homes, we will do turnkey homes and long-term lease homes. We will work with our partners in the housing bodies and the NGOs, which are also housing bodies, to bring about new homes. Please stop vilifying the housing bodies and NGOs which are providing social housing homes. Those homes count and they count big time to those people who get the keys and move into the homes. I know this personally because I have met those people.

We can protect more families and prevent more families from entering emergency accommodation because of the funding we have this year to work with local authorities and NGOs, and we can exit more families from homelessness as we did last year.

At all times we need to honest about the challenges we face. Our housing sector was destroyed and is being rebuilt in a way that did not happen before, that is, so that it cannot be broken again. We are also seeing other things happening in the economy such as increased demand due to people coming home to Ireland. There is also increased demand because there are good jobs available and people now have money to buy a house. Thankfully, we are also seeing a depression on rents and on house price increases because of the other measures the Government is taking. We will continue to work through those challenges, to implement the solutions that are working and to look at new ideas to see if we can take them on board if we believe they will help. We will, however, always be honest about our choices and will always be responsible in our choices. We will do everything we can to help people, and especially those who are most hurt in this crisis, the families and the children in hotels, bed and breakfast accommodation and family hubs tonight.

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