Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are back here again following a week during which people were left aghast by what the Government did in removing the eviction ban. For people across this country, this has been a terrible calamity. While it is much worse in the vast urban areas of Dublin and other cities, even rural areas like my constituency are being impacted by the ban's removal. A video is going around of an eviction in Bundoran in recent weeks. A family of eight were thrown out of their house. That is what it will be like for many families throughout the country if this situation is not resolved. There are landlords who will gather up the belongings of small children, put them in black plastic bags and throw them outside the door, as happened in Bundoran a week or two ago. The only protection people had was the Government's eviction ban, but the Government is taking that ban away and putting nothing in place to replace it. That is our difficulty.

The legislation we have tabled is a carbon copy of what the Minister tabled last October, yet he says it will not work. It did not work last October because the Government has done nothing since then. We want the Minister to keep driving forward, if only for the sake of people in this situation, and to show the same determination to provide housing. However, we are not seeing that. All we see are more empty promises.

The reality for many people is what happened in Bundoran and what will happen across a large amount of the country. Many of my colleagues have set out instances involving people in their constituencies who are experiencing these difficulties. I have encountered similar cases. I spoke to a woman the other day. Her husband has multiple sclerosis and she has a small child with a medical condition. She has received an eviction notice. She does not know where she is going to go. She is trying to get a local authority house and hoping beyond hope that something will come up. She may have to move to another end of the county to get something. That is a large upheaval.

The Government has stated that many people do not have to end up in emergency accommodation. If they do not get emergency accommodation, they are advised to live with family members, crouch surf with friends and find somewhere else. There is no somewhere else. That is the reality. Recently, I spoke to someone in the housing section of a housing authority. She told me that the only hope people had was if Jesus came back and carried out the miracle of the loaves and fishes again. This is what we need to do with housing. We simply do not have houses; they do not exist.

The Minister will tell us about everything he has done and provided for, that there are more houses now, with more coming on stream and more planning permissions going through. It is all nonsense, and is no good to the ordinary people out there who have nowhere to live. The Minister still does not have an answer to the question of where they will go when they get an eviction notice.

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