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

I join colleagues in welcoming the publication of this landmark report into familicide. I commend Ms Maura Butler and her colleagues on it. I express my sympathy and that of my Labour colleagues to all those families affected by this dreadful phenomenon.

An féidir leis an Aire a admháil gur botún a bhí ann? Can he admit that the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage made a mistake in failing to extend the temporary no-fault eviction ban? Can the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform admit that lifting the ban without evidence for doing so was in fact misguided and that the risk taken in doing so without evidence and without providing a safety net for renters has not paid off, the result being that we are now seeing the realisation of the worst-case scenario?

Earlier we debated homeownership and how to achieve home security for families and households; however, by lifting the eviction ban the Government signalled to renters that they were on their own when it comes to housing security. There was no safety net or contingency plan for the thousands of renters who now risk entering homelessness through no fault of their own. They are in a real rental nightmare. I am thinking of families like those in my own constituency – parents who are facing eviction and desperately seeking a new home but who cannot tell their children they will very soon be losing their homes until they get through the State examinations.

These families in my constituency are not alone. The latest figures, published by the Residential Tenancies Board just yesterday, record an increase in eviction notices. We now know that between January and March this year, 4,753 notices to quit were issued. The vast majority of these pertained to no-fault evictions. Families and individuals are being evicted in their droves, not because they have failed to pay rent or have engaged in antisocial behaviour but because their homes are commodified for a market that does not care for their welfare. Indeed, it is not the role of the market, nor that of private landlords, to keep people in housing security; it is the role of the State and the Government to provide people with security in their homes. The Government has failed to do this.

In 2021, we in Labour introduced a renters' rights Bill. During the debate on that Bill, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, committed to examining the proposals in it. One was to restrict no-fault evictions. This modest measure is treated or described as extreme in this country. It is not often that we in Labour have cause to commend the Tory Party across the pond, but the Minister may have seen that the British housing secretary, Mr. Michael Gove, recently unveiled legislation to end no-fault evictions there, namely the Tories' Renters (Reform) Bill. As even the Tories know, it is not radical to suggest that families should not lose their homes through no fault of their own. If the Tories can take the risk, the Irish Government should be similarly brave. Will it adopt our renters' rights Bill or at least match the ambition of the British Conservative Party and adopt policies to end no-fault evictions? Does the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform accept that successive homelessness and eviction data published since the end of March have shown that the Government was wrong to lift the ban? Will he accept our call to at least reinstate a temporary ban until homelessness rates reduce for four consecutive months?

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