Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I also want to deal with the questions asked by Deputies Boyd Barrett and McDonald, if I may. On the evictions moratorium and rent freeze, the only reason we are introducing the Residential Tenancies and Valuation Bill is because they were not legally tenable. The Bill will give a stronger statutory footing to protect tenants who are in rent arrears from being evicted during the Covid crisis. Tenants who make a declaration under this legislation cannot be evicted and that will remain the situation until January. The existing statutory instrument was grounded in the emergency legislation around Covid and given the reopening of society, it was not legally grounded or constitutional. We are now almost six months on and we have been advised, trenchantly and strongly, that the State is vulnerable to challenges and so on. It is not legally tenable to maintain the existing situation. This Bill is stronger and better than similar legislation in other jurisdictions, including Northern Ireland, where the Minister gave tenants 12 weeks' grace. Statutory protection for renters in the Republic is now much stronger than that in the North.

I say to Deputy McDonald that I was never in receipt of an annual allowance of €50,000. The allowance was €30,000 and I did not take it for the first three years. The Oireachtas passed legislation a long time ago under which leaders of Opposition parties were entitled to an allowance in respect of the overall resources of the party. That money is taxable and I am not in receipt of it now. Those are facts and bear no relation to questions about housing but, of course, the Deputy had to throw it in for some reason or another.

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