Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

More than 3,000 renters are currently protected from eviction and rent increases under the emergency Covid-19 housing legislation, which was introduced on 27 March 2020. The purpose of this Bill is to extend the emergency period specified in the Planning and Development, and Residential Tenancies, Act 2020 until 12 July 2021 and to provide the necessary amendments to the Act and to the Residential Tenancies Act 2020. I welcome the Bill, under which tenants are protected in many cases and are offered 90 days notice of termination. There are exemptions to the rule in the event of incidents of anti-social behaviour, unauthorised use of the dwelling, a threat to the fabric of dwelling or if a tenant is five months in arrears and has not submitted the relevant documents from the Money Advice & Budgeting Service. One should note that a tenant who has been arrears for five months is protected but if this Bill is passed in its present format, any tenant after today who is in arrears of five months or more would not be protected. There are also exceptions for landlords where their only income is from rented property and where the landlord is under undue financial hardship.

I am a Rural Independent Group Deputy and I am on the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage. I came here at short notice last week to discuss this Bill. I waited for two days for a copy of the Bill but did not receive it. I asked the committee to sit on Wednesday through to Tuesday to discuss and scrutinise the Bill, which did not happen because it said it might not be able to get witnesses. I, as a Rural Independent Group Deputy, offered to do that as did Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats and the Labour Party but it was refused by the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green Party members of the committee. The Chairperson was completely out of order in how he spoke to every one of us about this. My job here is to scrutinise the Bill. My job was also to get the Bill, which I never got. We are here to protect the renters and landlords.

There are people who are renting properties and abusing the situation. There are landlords who are abusing the situation. My job on the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage is to scrutinise the Bill. A vote was taken on pre-legislative scrutiny and they could not even get that right. The vote was announced as being seven to five. I scrutinised it and asked for it to be checked again. When it was checked again, it was found I was right. It was seven to six and one person was absent. Members of the committee are there to protect everyone and to scrutinise the Bill, which I did not receive. We cannot allow this to happen again. We are here to protect everyone. I welcome most of what is in the Bill but it needs to be amended. We could have scrutinised it and got that done on time for this to be voted on.

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