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

For the next two weeks, People Before Profit and others will be doing everything to urge people to get out in their many thousands on the streets of Dublin on the Saturday after next for the Raise the Roof housing protest.

One of the components of that protest will be people from places such as Tathony House, another multi-unit apartment complex in Rathmines, St. Helen's Court in my own constituency - all places where landlords are threatening or attempting to implement mass evictions on people who have done absolutely nothing wrong. There are many individuals who have done nothing wrong whatever, some of whom are not covered by the Government's recently passed Bill to defer certain notices to quit, who face the imminent prospect of homelessness. Under pressure, the Government has somewhat conceded in theory that local authorities could intervene to stop people from being evicted and purchase these complexes or individual homes. In practice, all the excuses are coming out, in many cases from local authorities. One of the big excuses, enunciated by Owen Keegan, for example, is that not everyone in these places is on the social housing list, they are above the threshold and so the council cannot possibly intervene to buy the property. Many others are in that situation as well. Will the Government do something to prevent people being made homeless by ensuring properties are bought and that people being over the threshold is not an impediment to such purchases?

See this speech in context