Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

On that very point, the thing about the Attorney General's advice, which is well written up by good legal scholars, is that the Government is not under obligation to follow his advice. The obligation is to listen to it and consider it but the Government can then make a decision as to what course of action it wants to take.

As Deputy Ó Broin has been saying, there is now a growing body of scholarly evidence from eminent legal commentators in Ireland, including in the Trinity College school of law, in this regard. It is strongly of the view that there is a lack of case law in this entire area because the Government has not taken different items of legislation through, I suppose out of fear of court cases being taken. Given the absence of case law, we simply do not know where the Supreme Court would lie on many of these issues. I agree with the Minister. We are bound by Bunreacht na hÉireann and if one reads it, it is very strong in terms of balancing private property rights with the common good. If the middle of a pandemic is not a time to act in the common good, when would be the time to act in the common good? Surely this is the very time we need to act to build social solidarity and social cohesion.

My amendment is backed by the Simon Communities of Ireland, which helped with the drafting of it, and it seeks to extend the emergency period for six months. I do not hold up the UK as a model, far from it, but I draw the attention of the Minister to the level of protections it has introduced during the pandemic for renters. It is stronger in England and Wales, where they had a full six-month ban on evictions. As the Minister must be aware, we ended ours at the end of July or the beginning of August but they extended it through to September. A full six-months' notice-to-quit period was introduced after that for all renters, but here it is only for certain categories of renter. That is a better level of protection. As to whether it is the best level of protection and what we should model ourselves on, that is absolutely not the case.

The key point, which the Minister knows, is that if we evict people it increases the level of homelessness. If we increase the level of homelessness, we increase the level of people in high-risk situations and congregated settings and that leads to an increase in Covid-19. That is what this amendment is about. Deputy Bruton was correct to say that we need more long-term measures in the rental sector to give better stability to the sector and for renters. That should be done as quickly as possible but this is the right measure now in terms of this pandemic. I strongly urge Deputies to support my amendment and that of Deputy Ó Broin.

See this speech in context