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

We debate housing in this House every week, as we should. We have had the Second Stage debate on this Bill. We have had two Committee Stage debates and we are now on Report Stage. We do not want any further delays to this legislation because it is so important. That is why I call on Deputies to refrain from making Second Stage speeches on Report Stage.

Deputy Boyd Barrett is right to say that we have to stop the flow of people into homelessness. However, we do not do that by losing more landlords. There are 31 sections in this Bill. I challenge Deputies to find one that does not improve the lot of tenants. That is the whole purpose of the Bill. Let us look through every section to see what we are trying to do. The Bill is greatly improving the situation for tenants through the changes we are making and because of the work that we have done across the House with this legislation to get it to this point. We have almost unanimous agreement on almost every aspect of the Bill. Of course some additional amendments have come forward at this stage, but unfortunately we cannot accept them all because we have to think about unintended consequences.

Deputy Boyd Barrett talks about evictions as a ground for sale. I have told the Deputy before that it is not constitutional. Even if it were constitutional, it would not be retrospective and so it would not stop any flow, as the Deputy thinks it would. If we could do it, the question arises on a policy basis of whether we should we do it. Let us suppose a young couple were buying a home with tenants in it. They would have to get the tenants out. Why would we put people who are trying to start a family or trying to live in a new home in that situation? They would then have to go through the process of serving the notice to quit and go through everything else. What if the tenants did not then leave? What then for that young couple who bought that home? Some Deputies think these measures would achieve certain ends that they simply will not achieve. They would actually make things far worse for many more people. These are the unintended consequences that I, as Minister, have to think about.

Reference was made to extending the notice to quit period. We are doing that. The Deputies should look at the table in the Bill. Currently, for a tenancy of six months to a year the period of notice is 35 days. That will increase to 90 days. Currently the notice period for a tenancy of between one and two years is 42 days. That will increase to 120 days. We are making these big changes to give far more time to people, when notice to quit is served on legitimate grounds, to find a new place to live. Where notice is not served on legitimate grounds, we are giving new powers to the Residential Tenancies Board to impose sanction. If it is a criminal offence, the board can go down that way. We have a new administrative sanctions regime. There is also a new offence for landlords who are not acting in accordance with the laws under Part 7 of the Act. This legislation is nothing but for the protection of tenants. I appeal to Deputies to recognise that in their contributions.

Unfortunately, I cannot support amendments Nos. 16 to 20, inclusive, for the reasons I have given on Committee Stage. The same applies to amendment No. 21 relating to the notice to quit period for less than six months.

See this speech in context