Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sure the Minister is aware that an awful lot of the FLAC centres around the country have more or less exclusively been dealing with family law cases. I note the figure of 13,000 calls that the Minister mentioned, which is a small but significant increase. I do not know whether the Minister noticed the following matter but I certainly did and I am sure the Acting Chairman did. There has been a massive increase in the number of people seeking advice since the ban on evictions ended. There have been many notices to quit, which involve landlord and tenant law and employment law. There are much fewer people, percentage wise, who are in trade unions. They are not getting any representation, a lot of them cannot afford the services of a specialised lawyer and they are coming to our offices. Does the Minister have any plans to resource FLAC so it can move into advocacy on behalf of workers and tenants who are receiving notices to quit? Most people know that most of those notices to quit are not genuine when they detail that properties are being sold or are for family members and so on. There needs to be a way that can be challenged by tenants and they are not able to do so.

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