Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and the positive tone of his contribution. I agree with a lot of what Senator Fitzpatrick has said. We are in the middle of a debate which has become so polarised and negative in some respects that it is disappointing.

Next year, it is proposed to hold a referendum to amend the Constitution in relation to housing. I do not see anything in the Constitution that prevents the present Government from doing anything that is required; nothing at all. When I was Attorney General I went to the Supreme Court to defend, under Article 26, Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000 and we succeeded. There is nothing in the Constitution which impedes the proper use of our nation's resources for housing and no amendment of the Constitution or no baloney in the Constitution is going to change the underlying problems which are there at the moment. It is a distraction and it is nonsense.

I do not like the term "landlords". I prefer to use the terms "lessors" and "lessees". People who have property as their private investment or pension fund have been very badly treated. The Minister's Department has made a series of fundamental errors. The introduction of the tenancies of indefinite duration and the abolition of bedsits were well intended measures. However, in reality it signalled to lessors that they were in danger of effectively becoming lessors for the community of their property, rather than it remaining their own property and their own investment.

Senator Gavan may not like me saying this but nothing was as reckless or foolish as the Sinn Féin proposal that people could not obtain a vacant possession of their own property for the purpose of selling but would have to sell it in future with whatever tenants are in it under contracts of indefinite duration. That frightened landlords massively, and rightly so, because it effectively means that the community is saying lessors are stuck with their tenancies forever. Let us be clear about this. Under the present law, if a property is rented to an elderly person, he or she is entitled to bring into the house a person to live with him or her. Unless the lessor can think of some very good reason not to, he or she is obliged to accept that person as a tenant in perpetuity and then their children if they want. That is the reality of the present law.

The idea of saying that people cannot get their property back for the purpose of selling it with vacant possession is crazy. It is damaging and foolish and it has caused a stampede out of the rented sector.