Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is trying to tell us black is white. He lifted the eviction ban. The consequences are beginning to come through now and all the spin in the world will not change that reality. The second Act of 2020 that the Minister brought in is extremely limited and only relates to situations involving arrears, inability to pay and so on.

I will give a concrete example that shows how landlords will continue to get around this. A woman, let us call her Jane, who lives in Knocklyon was subject to an eviction attempt by her landlord. She is a taxi driver and she lost her income as such. The Government then cut her pandemic unemployment payment, PUP. She then fell behind in her rent and so established rent arrears. Her landlord then attempted to evict her but he was smart enough not to say he was evicting her because of rent arrears due to Covid. Instead, all of a sudden a relative wants to move home. She does not get protection under the Minister's legislation and there are more and more situations like that. The chair of Threshold has warned that, unless action is taken, we face a homeless crisis worse than anything we have seen to date.

See this speech in context