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

One of the reasons we opposed the extension of the emergency legislation today, and will oppose the plan to impose fines in connection with the public health restrictions, is not because we do not support the public health measures or think that people should not comply with them to drive down the virus, but because we do not think coercion is the way to achieve compliance with public health measures. We believe persuasion is the way. The other reason is because it implies that the reason we now have a rising infection rate, such that we need a lockdown, is because of the behaviour of ordinary citizens rather than the behaviour of the Government. Here is an instance of what we are talking about. We know, for example, that congregated and overcrowded settings are conducive to the transmission of the virus. At any level of infection where the pandemic persists, the Government is actually endangering public health by allowing people to be homeless. The Government should be fined for doing that.

A pensioner in my area was made homeless during the previous lockdown. He could have invoked the legislation, but he did not feel he could stand up to the landlord. In any event, I think it was an Airbnb property so, although I am not sure, it could possibly be one of the instances covered by Deputy Ó Broin's previous amendment. He was a pensioner who was made homeless and he had to live in a shed for the entirety of the lockdown. His name is Brian. The only accommodation this pensioner was offered was in hostels in town, where he was obviously afraid to go because of his vulnerability to the virus. That is what was on offer for him from the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, DRHE.

If we allow people to become homeless, not just at level 5, but at any level of infection or where it is necessary for restrictions and while the pandemic persists, the Government is creating the conditions for the further transmission of the virus. It is. I do not understand how the Minister can shake his head. That is the case if he allows people to be put into homelessness or into homeless accommodation in congregated settings. I honestly do not know why the Minister is shaking his head. I will give him another example of a mother who was put into a hostel. This is precisely to the point.

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I have a case of a mother and her kids who were put into hostel in town while her kids go to school in Dún Laoghaire. That was all she was offered. She said that although they had their own-door accommodation, such was the situation in the hostel in Gardiner Street that there were kids from other families running in and out of the room where they were staying. They were also sharing bathrooms and so on. She was extremely worried from a public health point of view about herself and her kids. She then had to drag her kids out at 7 a.m. every morning to Dún Laoghaire to bring them to school. She was working as well and nearly lost her job. This was all at the lower level of restrictions before even the Government came in with various levels. She was extremely worried about her health in those conditions with numerous kids from multiple families running in and out of each other's rooms and sharing bathrooms.

Those are precisely the conditions we should not put people in during a pandemic. However, the Minister plans to do that as soon as we go down to level 4, level 3 or level 2, even though it is precisely those kind of settings which can then drive it back up again. It is madness. I do not see why the Minister would not accept this amendment, notwithstanding the wider debate about the issue of homelessness and banning evictions altogether. We will have that debate on another day. For the period of the pandemic with the possibility of infection rates continually going up and down, I cannot see how the Minister can justify not having a blanket ban on evictions. I think it is poppycock from the Attorney General from a legal and constitutional point of view while the Government and the Chief Medical Officer want to drive infection rates down by December to ensure we can come out of level 5. At the same time, NPHET modelling suggests it is more than likely that early in the new year infection rates will start to rise again once we leave the current restrictions. In turn, we will be into another lockdown and, as Deputy Pringle said earlier, we will be in another one three months down the line after that.

Why would the Minister have people on tenterhooks as to whether they could possibly be evicted? There is an irrefutable case for having at least a six-month moratorium on evictions. I am interested to hear the Minister's response but I think it is an unanswerable case to have a six-month eviction ban, if not one during the duration of the pandemic.

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