Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is no pro to being in emergency accommodation, sleeping in a tent or having to bring your children to a Garda station. The Taoiseach said the ban on evictions was not working. In fact, it was his Government that was not working. The reason the previous ban on evictions was so effective was because exits from homelessness rose. In the past year and half, under the watch of the Taoiseach and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, exits from homelessness have collapsed. The Taoiseach also said that the ban was creating a new form of homelessness. I tabled an amendment to the Residential Tenancies (Deferment of Termination Dates of Certain Tenancies) Bill 2022 last October which would have addressed this point, but this Government did not support it. Equally, the Taoiseach said that if the ban on evictions were to be continued, this would reduce the availability of rental stock. The very opposite would be the case. Once the ban on evictions is ended, landlords will continue to leave the market.

They have been doing it for six or seven years and they will continue in the time ahead.

With respect to the Government's target for the tenant in situscheme, we know what the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, does with his targets; he makes them and he breaks them over and over again. In my local authority, more than 100 homes have been offered to South Dublin County Council for the tenant in situscheme in the past year. How many have been bought? Three. The Taoiseach should please not come here and tell us he agreed anything new last night. The Government made one decision: to end the ban and increase homelessness.

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