Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will follow everybody else in wishing everybody a happy St. Patrick's Day next week, including Irish people living abroad. It will be a little bit different because people are not travelling this year. St Patrick's Day is often used as an opportunity by Ministers to lobby for the undocumented Irish in the US. I ask that next week, people do not forget those who have come to Ireland and who have ended up being undocumented here. Many of them came here to work but fell into undocumentation through bad employers or the loss of jobs. This affects up to 17,000 people and I welcome the commitment in the programme for Government, in the inclusion of which was led by the Green Party, to give these people a pathway to legal residency. The Labour Party stands in solidarity with the undocumented in Ireland. I ask that we remember them next week as we extol the virtues of us moving around the globe in search of a better life, and realise some people come to Ireland to do that too.

I raise the issue of the extension of the eviction ban until the end of 2021. When the 5 km limit is lifted, many of us will be relieved. We will be able to see friends and travel. However, there are people for whom the lifting of the 5 km will mean they are facing potential homelessness. There is no political or legal reason that was tied together in the Residential Tenancies and Valuation Act. We tried to give the Minister the opportunity to extend the eviction ban, for health reasons, without linking it to the 5 km.

In the two months after the last eviction ban was lifted in August, more than 360 people were served eviction notices. There is a build-up of evictions waiting to happen. I know of two and will give examples. A man with two children is going to be evicted due to substantial renovations. He does not believe that is the reason but by the time it is heard by the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, he, his wife and his two children will be out on the street with nowhere to go. It is very difficult to see how they will be able to find alternative accommodation in the middle of a pandemic. In another case, I know of a woman whose landlord has begun to make noises about moving to Spain as a result of the pandemic. She is in receipt of housing assistance payment, HAP, and has lived there for eight years.

I checked the property price register for that particular house. Both these people live on the same road. The landlord paid under €100,000 for the property which has been made back many times since. It seems fundamentally unfair that two families are potentially facing eviction, when the landlord could potentially make three times what he paid for the property if he sells it. Substantial renovations are not an adequate excuse.

I ask the Minister to consider extending the eviction ban until the end of 2021, giving families living in the private rented sector certainty in the middle of this global pandemic.