Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In a situation where somebody is in a HAP or RAS tenancy, they should not be evicted and the council should buy the house. That facility is now there and the Minister has made that clear to the councils. However, the Minister cannot make every operational decision in respect of every housing unit in every local authority area across the country. On another day, people in this House routinely condemn central government for overreach into local authority decision-making. The principle is that we want to stop or reduce evictions, and the facility now exists for local authorities to buy houses in situations like that.

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