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

I will respond to a comment from the Minister. He said there was significant engagement between officials in his Department and the Oireachtas joint committee dealing with housing. That is absolutely the case.

It is also the case that the Minister wrote to the committee seeking a waiver of pre-legislative scrutiny of this Bill. Instead of agreeing to that waiver the committee, whose members take their constitutional role as legislators and scrutinisers of legislation very seriously, offered to facilitate the Minister by carrying out the pre-legislative scrutiny quickly but thoroughly. The Minister did not agree to that and introduced the Bill in the Seanad rather than putting it through the pre-legislative scrutiny process at committee. A substantive four-page Bill went to the Seanad and then last week, 17 pages of amendments and entirely new sections were introduced. For the record, this is not a good way to legislate, particularly when one element of the Bill is an attempt to correct legislative mistakes that were made in the past. One would hope that we would have learned some lessons at this stage but it appears not. I certainly cannot see any evidence of lessons having been learned.

The substitute consent element of this Bill is an attempt to fix a problem that effectively dates back to 1985 when the original iteration of the environmental impact assessment directive was adopted. The problem here is that Ireland has been taking a minimalist approach to EU directives. That is why we have ended up in difficulty on this and why we are now paying fines and dealing with a large number of court cases. It is also why the community in Derrybrien has paid such a high price for mistakes that were made in terms of legislation that was not thorough enough and was not adequately scrutinised. If one thinks of the time this has taken at Civil Service and Government level, as well as the costs involved, including legal costs, we really should have learned to process legislation properly at this stage and not to rush it. In terms of EU directives, we should have learned not to try to get away with the least amount possible in terms of implementation. That is not the right approach. There has been a lot of very good talk recently in this Chamber about our important role in the European Union in the context of Brexit, with which I wholeheartedly agree. Yet, when it comes to really important EU directives the approach time and again is to try to get away with doing the minimum amount necessary to comply, rather than embracing the spirit of the directives and thinking about the long-term benefits for us as a country of full implementation. The political attitude in that regard needs to change.

Specifically on substitute consent, I am concerned about the proposals in the Bill in terms of how we can be sure that in all cases the information under consideration by the board on the issue of exceptional circumstances, which will now take place at a substantive stage, will be fully available to the public. I am also concerned as to whether the wording and consideration for exceptional circumstances conforms to the high bar required by the European Court of Justice for regularising developments or consents in breach of the EIA directive.

With respect to the provisions to remove the requirement for public meetings in relation to proposed development plans, I am fully supportive of online meetings. They are a great way of engaging with people and there is a logic to these provisions in the context of emergencies such as Covid-19. However, I am absolutely against the permanent removal of public meetings at this stage in the development plan process because it will exclude people. In my own community, some of the best community activists are not comfortable with online participation. Indeed, even when people are comfortable with online fora, there is often a lot to be gained from real world, physical public meetings, including the potential for community building. We should be facilitating both options and not making this move which will result, in practice, in many local authorities choosing to go for the online option only. We could and should be doing both in an effort to include more people in the process.

On planning changes in the context of the Covid-19 emergency period, I am concerned that there may not be proactive communication from local authorities and planning authorities if planning timelines change. Will there be enough communication around that? Certainly all practice to date suggests that this sort of communication and information tends not to get out to people. There tends to be a lot of confusion around it when set times are involved. In that context, I am concerned that changes will lead to confusion about deadline dates and so forth. I am also concerned that there will not be sufficient safeguards in place with regard to the discretion afforded to local authorities. I understand the situation the Minister is trying to address and he is quite right to do so but I am not convinced there are sufficient safeguards built in. This aspect of the Bill may not be in compliance with EU law and the Aarhus convention in terms of public participation. We could see a situation where there are different planning timelines in operation in different parts of the country and that could be highly problematic in the context of citizens knowing their rights vis-à-visdeadlines and so forth.

The concerns I have just outlined must be addressed and I have submitted amendments to improve the relevant sections of the Bill. I ask the Minister to consider my amendments which were tabled in the spirit of trying to improve the legislation. A lot of the measures contained in this Bill are very welcome and their intent is to be supported. I will be supporting the thrust of the Bill; the amendments I have tabled seek to improve it further.

The Social Democrats will support the section of the Bill that extends protections for renters. However, it is problematic that these provisions will only provide protections for a limited number of renters. Fewer than 400 renters have been able to avail of the protections so far and some renters will potentially have their declarations cancelled under the measures proposed in the Bill, when landlords will also be able to make a declaration. This concerns me, as does the fact that the protections will only apply to notice of termination for rent arrears. All other notices for eviction will remain valid. In the context of an ongoing pandemic, when public health should be first and foremost in our minds and when we know that some of those most at risk from Covid-19 are people living in overcrowded conditions in the private rented sector, renters should be getting more and stronger protection. The measures in the Bill lack the kind of social solidarity that is needed and they lack ambition. Research conducted by Harvard University shows a direct link between evictions and an increase in the spread of Covid-19. This is not a theoretical issue but one that has an impact on the fight against Covid-19 which will continue to be a very real public health challenge at least until the middle of next year. The complex and bureaucratic process surrounding declarations and the timelines for same will ensure that some more vulnerable tenants who could be eligible for protection are more likely to miss out.

What we should be doing is putting in place protections for all renters who fall into rent arrears. We should also be putting in place permanent measures, protections and structures around debt resolution, payment plans and mediation as alternatives to eviction. We should be going further than the proposals in the Bill. We would be better served by long-term reforms in this sector rather than a limited extension of emergency measures. The Residential Tenancies Act provides landlords with seven different ways to end a tenancy when there has been no wrongdoing on the part of the tenant. That needs to be changed. We need to remove these no-fault grounds for eviction. That would reduce the number of people who lose their homes, bringing us in line with the European norm. The Social Democrats is taking a constructive approach to this Bill and I ask the Minister to look constructively at the amendments we have put forward to improve it.

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