Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On 9 February, six weeks ago now, the Labour Party called for an extension to the eviction ban in our motion. The Government voted it down. It voted down our proposal for a series of constructive measures that would have served to increase the number of homes available to people. Despite positive indications the Government was going to extend the ban in the meantime, at the last minute it has confirmed that it will indeed lift it at the end of next week, in ten days' time. This decision is already causing immense distress and devastation to those families and renters throughout the country who are facing a cliff edge of eviction from 1 April.

Since our motion was defeated, answers to parliamentary questions we received confirmed that the Government did not undertake any modelling as to the effect its decision would have on increasing homelessness. The responses from the Government have also confirmed that the primary consideration for choosing the duration of the ban in the first place was that of weather, meteorological conditions, which is incredible. Further responses confirmed that no new or clear direction was given to local authorities by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to mandate the purchase of homes occupied by renters facing homelessness. In other words, the Government has wasted the breathing space afforded to it by the ban. It could have used the six months the ban was in operation to plan, put contingency measures in place, add extra homes for people, and add extra conditionality to ensure, for example, that landlords moving back into their own homes could be catered for. It is extraordinary and incomprehensible to all of us that the Government instead went ahead and decided to lift the ban from the end of next week without any plan B or any contingencies.

Nothing the Government can float this week, and we have seen in the past 30 minutes apparently leaked details of the sorts of measures that will be in its countermotion, will help those who are due to lose their homes from the start of April. Nothing. No kite-flying this week will provide the reassurance parents who are contacting us need. These parents cannot bear the thought that they will have to take their children out of school because they simply cannot find another place to live in their own community. In my constituency, I hear from parents in this position. I hear from renters who will now face hours-long commutes because they cannot afford a home in a community near their workplace.

It is not too late, even now at the eleventh hour, to reverse the Government's decision and to extend the ban.

The Government should vote for the Opposition motion tomorrow, as it seems some Government Members are proposing to do. If the Government does not do so, the Labour Party has proposed a constructive alternative. As the Taoiseach knows, I wrote to him last Thursday with draft legislation which we are calling on the Government to move this week. Our legislation provides a mechanism to keep the ban in place until monthly homelessness reports show reductions for four successive months. This is a compassionate and evidenced-based approach. It is results-based rather than time-based and an approach that homelessness agencies have urged the Government to adopt.

Will the Taoiseach admit that the Government has made a mistake? Will he stop defending the indefensible and reverse his decision? If not, he will leave us with no choice but to table a motion of no confidence in his Government next week. This is a measure we do not take lightly but it is one which we believe is justified by reference to the devastation the Government’s decision is causing to so many thousands of families and renters around the country.

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