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

Good, I am glad. In fairness, I do think that the Government is taking a constructive approach this evening and everyone welcomes that. The subject goes way above party politics and that is how we all approach it.

We all agree that it is much more cost effective to prevent homelessness. It spares families and children the trauma of losing their home and all the stress and negative consequences that go with that. As Deputy Ó Broin says, what we want to do is shift resources away from emergency responses and into prevention and long-term secure accommodation. That comes with its challenges. It cannot be done over night. One cannot simply withdraw emergency supports but that is where we all want to work towards. It is important that we invest more in tenancy protection services which have been found to be very effective and in mediation support, debt resolution and payment plans, which have proved very effective in other jurisdictions. I am concerned that while homeless expenditure is very high now, the percentage going on prevention has dropped in recent years. That needs to be addressed. Other factors in prevention include improving the rights of renters. We need to remove no fault evictions from the tenancy Acts. There are seven different no-fault ways for a landlord to end a tenancy in Ireland. That is out of line with EU norms. This Bill seeks to lay the groundwork for preventing evictions into homelessness, which is something we should work towards. In countries such as Poland, landlords may not evict tenants into nowhere, alternative housing must be arranged in all evictions. In Germany, statutory housing support services are notified when someone is being evicted. There are similar obligations in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia and Finland has measures around bailiffs in cases where children are at risk while France and Scotland have some measures in place around lenders. I ask the Minister to consider all these and introduce something similar.

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