Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I did send the details. I emailed the Minister last week. If this Bill goes through, the vulture fund that has been trying for three years to evict those tenants will succeed in evicting ten households, including families who have paid their rent for years and have never missed the rent. They are working people who will be evicted into homelessness as a result of this Bill's passing which will allow the vulture fund which bought that complex to evict them on the grounds of sale. It is shameful and runs completely in the face of public health guidance.

It is not just Threshold, the Simon Communities, and others who have said that at very minimum - and we are tabling amendments to this effect - the eviction ban should be maintained for everyone until the pandemic is over, or at least until the end of this year, so that no one is evicted in the middle of a public health emergency. The National Economic and Social Council, NESC, which is under the remit of the Department of the Taoiseach, produced a report in recent weeks saying that overcrowding was incompatible with the protection of public health during the pandemic and that the emergency ban on all evictions should be retained for the duration of the pandemic. Even a body under the aegis of the Taoiseach is saying that the Government should not be doing what it is doing, yet the Minister is opening the door to evictions which will happen immediately. Homelessness has decreased as a result of the eviction ban, just as we said it would. It is now going to start to increase again as a direct result of the passage of this Bill. How can the Minister possibly justify that in any circumstances but particularly during a pandemic when the Government will directly endanger the lives of the people who will be evicted into homelessness because of the threat of Covid-19? The Minister is dancing to the tune of greedy vulture funds and landlords who want the right to evict tenants on the grounds of sale, refurbishment and other ways to maximise the value of their property. That is what this is about: putting profit of landlords and vulture funds ahead of people.

I ask that the Minster please not give us the legal excuse. All the public health agencies, including the World Health Organization, are warning of a second wave. It is almost inevitable we will face further spikes in Covid-19 until there is a vaccine. The emergency context that allowed the passage of this legislation in March continues. The suggestion that somehow this is incompatible with the Constitution is nonsense and, frankly, it is unacceptable that an Attorney General who is himself a landlord would not recuse himself from giving advice on this issue. We absolutely reject that contention. To assist the Minister, today I will introduce the right to housing Bill which seeks to amend the Constitution to give greater powers in the area of housing to override private property provisions and ensure the common good by protecting people's right to secure and affordable housing, in case the Minister wants to use that excuse, which is not acceptable.

We will seek to amend the Bill to ensure that the protections are retained, but we will vote against it because it is an absolutely disgraceful betrayal of tenants which will directly lead to a resurgence of evictions into homelessness of families and individuals who have done nothing wrong. I do not know how the Minister can do this in the midst of a public health emergency.

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