Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not intend to accept any of these amendments. They are all being rejected. Part 2 of this Bill is intended to operate only during the focus period of a public health emergency. I ask people to understand that we believe we have an opportunity to give greater protections to tenants for these couple of months linked to the public health emergency that exists today. Going beyond that would jeopardise this legislation and may not be able to help the people we are trying to help. There are lots of other policy discussions Deputies want to have, new Governments will come in and those discussions can be had but for today and tonight this is for an emergency situation for the next three or four months. I ask Members to look at it through that prism only. We have had the other discussions before and will have them again. They can absolutely continue at a later stage but for tonight I need people to understand this is to give us the powers to help people for the next three or four months if needs be, based on public health. I cannot accept these amendments.

See this speech in context