Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will be very brief because time is short. I want to speak in favour of amendment No. 16 tabled by People Before Profit. To speed up the process, I will withdraw amendment No. 18. I have one point in response to the Minister. Attorneys General are like political parties. There are differences of opinion between different schools of law. When many of us make proposals that are contrary to Government proposals we do so consulting legal experts as eminent, albeit with a different legal point of view, as the current Attorney General. Therefore, many of us have strong legal advice from some of the country's most eminent constitutional law experts that the types of protections we propose are indeed possible. Of course, legal opinions are not unlike hairdressers, whereby people like one and do not like another. Let me be very clear that nobody in the Opposition is making proposals because we are not serious about them or because we do not believe they have legal grounding. Our legal advice is different. If we were in government with a different Attorney General I am sure we would be able to provide the type of protections to renters that the Government clearly will not provide.

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