Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is what we are being asked to do. I clearly asked the Minister what his blueprint was. It is not good enough to give us this bit of the jigsaw today and ask us to buy into it. If we purchase this part of the Bill, the Minister will come back with another piece of legislation which will have a serious impact on what is being decided here today. The Minister is therefore asking us to make decisions on legislation while not knowing the implications for landlords and private rented dwellings.

The majority of accommodation in the State comprises local authority houses and private rented dwellings. This will have a massive impact on the people, so it is absolutely ludicrous to ask us to make decisions on this legislation at this stage. I would go further than most other Senators and ask the Leader of the House to come back in. I think we should report progress on this Bill. The Bill should then be shelved until after Christmas.

We are being asked to buy a pig in a poke, as was done by previous Ministers on similar legislation. We should have the full picture and both pieces of legislation before us before we are asked to make a decision on them. We should be reporting progress at this stage. The Minister should come back and give us a full picture unless the Minister can clarify the issues around landlords and private rented accommodation and so forth and what is in his plan. Surely he is not working in the same type of a vacuum and is not making it up as he goes along. Surely he did not just come up with this Bill and is going to figure out how to do the next Bill as he goes along. That is simply not good enough. I propose that, at this stage, we shelve this Bill and come back to it when we have the full picture.