Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We all get trolled. The existing Constitution allows for a delimiting of the rights of private property holders in the interests of the common good. That is what we did during the Covid pandemic, what the Minister has done with his very limited rent controls and so on and what he is doing here. Given that this House has declared an emergency, there is a very sound basis for maintaining the ban on evictions until that emergency is over. That is constitutionally sound. I do not believe any judge would entertain an argument that this House does not have the right to declare an emergency and to say that emergency measures are therefore constitutionally justified. I will just say that.

We can deal with this on section 2, but the Minister did not comment on the people who are not covered under the Bill. Perhaps we will get to that on section 2 but I am worried we will not get that far. I refer to the people who are overholding, those who are already past their termination date. Those people will not be protected which means they could potentially face being evicted over the winter period. People whose termination dates have passed are every bit as deserving of the protections the Minister has accepted should apply for this period as others but they are not protected and could therefore be evicted. That needs to be addressed.

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