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

Unless the Taoiseach reinstates the eviction ban, he will be throwing thousands of renters to the wolves in the worst of all possible circumstances. We opposed the Government's decision to lift the eviction ban, which had been very successful, as we said it would be, in reducing the numbers going into homelessness. In removing that ban, the Taoiseach betrayed his previous support for the anti-evictions Bill my colleagues and I introduced in the last Dáil and, in so doing, performed one of the first U-turns of this Government. Whatever about all that, in the current circumstances, where people's pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, is being cut, new restrictions are being imposed and fewer people are going to have the income necessary to pay rents, the possibility of people being made homeless is simply unacceptable. It is totally incompatible with protecting public health in the context of Covid-19. The Taoiseach must reinstate the eviction ban. Anything else would be utterly irresponsible and unjust.

See this speech in context