Seanad debates

Wednesday, 14 September 2022

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business

 

2:30 pm

Photo of Rebecca MoynihanRebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Leader and Senators back to the House after a long summer.

I begin by commiserating with Ambassador Johnston and the British people on the death of their Head of State and monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.

I wish to raise the following issue because we hit a milestone over the summer; more than 10,000 people are now homeless in this country, the highest number since records began. Evictions are up 55%. While the housing issue is complex and takes time to address, there is something we can do on an immediate level to try to bring those numbers down. We know the majority of people entering homelessness come from the private rental sector. The number of evictions due to landlords selling up is an issue and a problem.

During the winter months in France, people were not allowed to be evicted into homelessness. From our perspective, we should look at changing legislation. The Labour Party has included in our renters' rights Bill that when a landlord is selling a property, which has a tenant is in place, that tenant may stay in situ. It is the same when it comes to a commercial tenant. If I were to buy a Brown Thomas building from the current owners or any other building on Grafton Street, the commercial tenants on the lease have the right to stay. If I do not want them to stay, I would have to buy them out of the lease. That gives them security of tenure and a right to stay. We must extend the same protections to people as those extended to commercial operations.At a really basic level, we know that one of the consequences of the eviction ban at the time of Covid was that homelessness fell. We need to immediately move to stop evictions. At the very least, if a property is being sold by one landlord to another, people should have security of tenure.

I want to raise an issue that arose over the summer, that is, construction defects. That report is now on the Minister's desk. We know that a potential 100,000 units built over the course of the Celtic tiger from 1991 to 2013 have defects. I was on a call last night with constituents who are living in an affected building. They are being told their bill is going to come to at least €68,000. They are terrified that the fire officer is going to kick them out. That has already happened to one person in Priory Hall. We need to move immediately in the budget for a redress scheme for these people who are affected by construction defects. We must make sure that is retrospective. These people need certainty. That work needs to take place as soon as possible. They are terrified the fire officer will kick them out. They are terrified that there is no certainty around whether they are going to start the works. We have established the precedent in the mica scheme and we need to extend that to the 100,000 people who are affected by construction defects.

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