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

I move amendment No. 15:

In page 6, line 22, after “paragraph (b)” to insert “and the deletion of paragraphs 3 and 4 of the Table to that section”.

This is to improve tenants' security of tenure and limit the grounds for eviction. It recognises that where someone is renting is his or her home. The landlord has ownership and derives an income from it but it is the tenant's home. This amendment seeks to bring us in line with many other northern European countries that recognise that where someone is renting is his or her home, where his or her children may be going to school, where he or she is making friends and has neighbours, and where he or she may be embedded in the community. We should be limiting evictions and notices to quit to the kinds of circumstances where a tenant is in breach of a lease, engaging in antisocial behaviour, is not paying rent, etc. Those should be the grounds for evictions. Our long list of grounds, which will remain intact under the Bill, is problematic and causes significant trauma for individuals and families. A family might have just reached the point of their child being settled in school, or they might have a child with learning disabilities and have got him or her supports in school, only to be served with an eviction notice. The problems and stresses that come from being uprooted will kick in for that family, as will the ensuing wider societal and State supports.

If we are serious about recognising that where someone is renting is his or her home, realising that the last place most people who become homeless had a stable home was in the private rental sector and trying to curb the number of people becoming homeless and all that entails, we should be looking to bring ourselves in line with other European countries, limit our grounds for eviction and create better security of tenure for tenants.

This is not just about the people who get evicted or are at risk of eviction. It is also about giving everyone else a sense of security about his or her home and taking that stress away. When people have a sense of a place as being their home, it gives them stability and they can get on with everything else in their lives without the constant fear that, even though they are paying their rent and upholding their end of the contract, their landlord could legitimately and legally give them notice to quit at any point on any number of grounds. This amendment seeks to remove that uncertainty and give people security, which they get in many other European countries and should get in Ireland.

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