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

I will speak on the same theme. Even business interests are now saying the housing and homelessness crisis is a major barrier to economic development or competitiveness if we want to put it in those terms. The Taoiseach justified what I believe to be the cruel and shameful decision to allow more families, individuals and children to be evicted into homelessness in the coming months on the basis he would do other things, namely, ramp up the purchase of homes where people are threatened with eviction.

Yesterday I received an interesting email from a landlord who has to sell his property for financial reasons but does not want to evict his tenants. This is in my area and it will interest the Cathaoirleach. The landlord approached Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to say he does not want to evict the tenant and to ask the local authority if it would buy the property. The local authority asked whether he had issued the tenant with a notice to quit. He said he does not want to evict the tenant and that he wants the local authority to buy the property. He was told that if he was not threatening to evict the tenant, the local authority would not buy the house. This is typical of what is going on at present. It is "computer says nah" with Government schemes. It is similar to the issue I raised yesterday with the Taoiseach of the family who were over the income threshold and therefore were not eligible for the tenant in situscheme. The Taoiseach mentioned particular circumstances. There are particular circumstances but let me make it clear: this family will be homeless.

The Taoiseach should maintain the eviction ban, but if he will not do so, will he please tell local authorities to have a human, flexible, explore-all-options approach to preventing people being made homeless and not tell people they do not tick the box of a particular inadequate Government scheme and therefore they cannot do anything for them? This has to change urgently. This example demonstrates the point.

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