Eviction Ban Bill 2022: Motion

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes that:

— on 22nd February, 2023, Dáil Éireann agreed the second reading of the Eviction Ban Bill 2022;

— in the intervening period, the number of homeless people has risen sharply, with an additional 1,093 people, which includes an additional 398 children, living in emergency homeless accommodation;

— there has been a large increase in notices of termination of tenancies in the three months since the Government lifted the eviction ban, with 5,735 notices of termination issued in the period of April to June, 21 per cent higher than the 4,753 notices of termination in the first quarter of 2023, indicating that further large increases in evictions into homelessness are likely in the approaching winter months; and

— in the seven intervening months, detailed scrutiny of the Eviction Ban Bill 2022 has not yet been conducted by the Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage; and agrees that, given the extreme urgency of the housing and homelessness crisis, the requirement for the Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, pursuant to Standing Order 180, to report, prior to Committee Stage, on its detailed scrutiny of the Eviction Ban Bill 2022, is hereby suspended.

This motion seeks to waive the pre-legislative scrutiny requirement for People Before Profit-Solidarity's Eviction Ban Bill, which passed Second Stage in this House in February of this year, but which has not progressed since then. It is a matter of urgency that it progresses so an emergency ban on no-fault evictions can be reinstated, though we would be more than happy for the Government to reinstate the ban itself.

There is no acceptable level of homelessness. I really hope the Government gets that because of the hardship, suffering and trauma families, individuals and, worst of all, children facing homelessness or made homeless are threatened with when they have, in the vast majority of cases, done nothing wrong. They have paid the rent, not engaged in antisocial behaviour and often been living in private rented accommodation for years and years and are then evicted into homelessness and face the terror and fear of being put into emergency accommodation with no option, in many cases, to get out of there. This is because there are 160,000 households awaiting social housing across the various lists and rents are off the Richter scale and totally unaffordable to the vast majority of people. Accordingly, if people are pushed into homelessness through no fault of their own they are in deep trouble. They often have children. There are now 12,800 individuals of whom just under 4,000 are children suffering the trauma, hardship and terror of being homeless.

There is no doubt the Government's decision to lift the eviction ban has made the situation worse and it is Orwellian that the Government claims this is not the case. Let us look at the trajectory of homelessness. In July 2014 there were 3,258 people homeless. By January 2020 that had gone up to 10,200, which represented a tripling over those years. The only period when the number of people in homelessness reduced was the one in which the eviction ban was brought in during the Covid pandemic. The figure went from 10,200 in January 2020 down to 7,900 in May 2021 when that emergency ban was lifted towards the end of the pandemic. Thus, there was a dramatic reduction in the number of people being driven into homelessness during the first ban on evictions during Covid. Ever since then it has gone up. The Government says when it brought in the second temporary ban for a few months in the winter of 2022 that the ban did not stop a number of people going into homelessness and therefore it was not working. It is true people continued to enter homelessness, but the vast majority of those did so because they had received notice to quit prior to the introduction of the temporary ban, so it did not cover them. We pointed out at the time that people would still be made homeless during the temporary ban because it did not cover notices to quit that had already expired. However, it is absolutely clear the number of people entering homelessness reduced. The overall figures increased, but the number of people entering homelessness reduced.

Of course, when the Government made the disastrous decision to lift the second temporary eviction ban the numbers began to climb dramatically. In March 2023 there were 11,988 people in emergency accommodation. The latest figures, for July 2023, show 12,847 people in that situation, of whom 4,000 are children, as I said. In other words, since the Government's decision to lift the temporary eviction ban, an additional 1,093 people have entered homelessness and emergency accommodation, of whom 398 are children. We have also seen a dramatic increase in the number of notices to quit issued. In the first quarter of 2023 there were 4,753 notices to quit. In the second quarter, that had increased to 5,735, which is a 21% increase due to the Government giving the green light to allow people who have done nothing wrong to be evicted.

Earlier this week, when he was speaking in support of this motion and the Bill to reinstate the eviction ban, Fr. Peter McVerry predicted that on the current trajectory of people entering homelessness we are facing potentially 16,000 families, individuals and children homeless by the time we arrive at a general election because in most cases they are being evicted on grounds of sale or other grounds allowed by the Government. That is just shameful. It is disgusting to allow this to happen and for the Government to wash its hands and say this is somehow an acceptable level of homelessness or, even worse, to put forward an Orwellian argument that suggests it is somehow improving the situation to allow these evictions because it will encourage more landlords to enter the market. As a final point, one of the arguments the Government has made is that if it reintroduces an eviction ban it will encourage more landlords to leave the market. The Central Statistics Office, CSO, brought out figures during the summer that showed that compared with the last census, the number of tenancies has dramatically increased. Those figures are considerably higher than the registrations for the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, which suggests there are a huge number of properties being purchased, often on the back of evictions, by institutional investors or by landlords who are failing to register with the RTB. The Government should not be pandering to people like that and should be doing something about it to ensure people are not driven into homelessness.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Why are we, at the start of another Dáil term, debating something the House debated previously and passed, namely, our Bill? We are here again because the Government is deliberately blocking it. It is leaving the Bill in committee or not even progressing it to committee because the Government is opposed to the reintroduction of the eviction ban, despite the fact the Dáil passed this Bill to have a proper eviction ban to prevent people from being made homeless. At the root of that is the conscious decision of the Government to allow the number of homeless people in this State to rise higher and higher so landlords can maximise their profit. That is the essence of the decision the Government has made and which it looks like the Government is shamefully going to continue to make as we go into the winter.

We know there are now almost 13,000 homeless people in emergency accommodation, 4,000 of whom are children. These are the people in emergency accommodation. In addition to them we have to add those who are sleeping rough on our streets while the storm is approaching. We must also add those who are couch surfing and those living in vans, in cars and in tents in our parks. It is an absolute disgrace and it is a conscious political choice.

Yesterday the Taoiseach, in response to Deputy Boyd Barrett, argued that the last eviction ban did not work, and that homelessness increased and the number of people in emergency accommodation increased almost every month it was in situ. He said it just deferred homelessness and that it made a bad situation worse later. What he is saying is complete nonsense. The idea that deferring homelessness would be a bad thing and that it does not matter to people that they have a roof over their heads tonight, tomorrow night, next month or whenever is utterly bizarre. The idea that it made a bad situation worse is ridiculous. Yes, it is true that in the timeframe of the inadequate eviction ban, which is not the same as the eviction ban we propose, it did not reduce the number of people who were homeless and that the number of people in emergency accommodation rose during most of those months but it is disingenuous in the extreme by the Taoiseach because he knows the figures demonstrate that once the partial inadequate eviction ban was lifted the homeless figures began to rise at a much more rapid rate. It made a difference and reduced the number of people in emergency accommodation who were homeless. Now the Government has made a decision, and will stick to it by the looks of it, to allow more and more people to become homeless. It seems to think the political price of having 15,000 or 16,000 people homeless is worth paying as long as it means the market can continue to operate.

In the second quarter of this year 5,700 eviction notices were issued, which was approximately 1,000 more than were issued in the first three months when the partial eviction ban was in place. In the three months since the end of the partial eviction ban half of the single adults who became homeless said they had been evicted from rental accommodation. All of those people would have been spared homelessness if the Government had put an eviction ban in place. Thousands more will be spared homelessness if the Government accepts the motion and implements the eviction ban. We had 20,000 notices to quit issued this year before the start of July.

What is the Government's alternative to an eviction ban? It is tax breaks for landlords. This is the Government's alternative. The Government's alternative is to say that landlords should pay a lower rate of tax on passive income than their renters pay on the earned income they get for going out to work. It is scandalous and barefaced. The Government constructs a logic for it and I will demonstrate how there is no basis for it. People can see the reason the Government is doing it is because it represents the landlords. It is not a Government that represents renters or homeless people. The constructed argument by the landlord lobby is to say that landlords are fleeing the sector and that they are having such a difficult time they need to have tax breaks and pay a low rate of tax and that this will give stability to tenants. The truth is that record rents are being paid in this country. There is a record amount of money going from the pockets of ordinary people into the pockets of those who own multiple properties, in particular, of course, the big corporate landlords. In 2016 €3.1 billion was paid in rent. There was €4.7 billion paid in rent to private landlords in 2022. The average weekly rent has gone from €200 to €273. As Deputy Boyd Barrett has pointed out, rather than this idea that the private rental sector is getting smaller, it has got bigger. From 2016 to 2022 the number of occupied dwellings rented from a private landlord increased by 7% to more than 330,000. This is a manufactured argument to try to get some tax cuts so that landlords pay less tax than renters are asked to pay.

The alternative is extremely simple. If landlords want to exit the market, that is grand, there is no problem and it is not a crisis for anybody as long as the tenant gets to remain in situ. If landlords want to exit the market, the State should just buy the properties from them at market rate. The landlords will achieve what they want, which is that they want to exit the market and that is fine; the tenant will get security of tenure and get to become a council tenant; and the State will get the benefit of an asset from which it will earn rent and will stop someone from becoming homeless.

Deputy Kieran O'Donnell

That is tenant in situ.

Deputy Paul Murphy

That is tenant in situ. That is right.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Which we proposed.

Deputy Paul Murphy

We proposed it and it should be done everywhere. Instead of saying that we have to give these people tax breaks to stay in the market, we should tell them that if they want to leave there is no problem, the State will buy the property and we will expand our public housing. This needs to be expanded throughout the country.

I want to raise the cases of illegal eviction in this country where gardaí are doing precisely what was depicted in Spicebag's art, of which there was so much condemnation, which is standing by while families are being evicted. Look at what happened in Waterford approximately a month ago. Aaron Madigan and his fiancée Grace got a notice of termination. They contacted the Community Action Tenants Union, CATU, and Threshold. They were able to find out their actual rights as tenants regardless of the disingenuous and wrong contract supposing they were licensees. They disputed the case with the Residential Tenancies Board and they were able to say it was an illegal eviction. The correct notice period was not served and it was not a correct eviction. Men showed up to evict them and kicked down their door. They were illegally trying to break into their home. They called the gardaí, which is what people are recommended to do. The gardaí arrived, brought the men into their home and helped to facilitate the eviction. It is an absolute scandal that gardaí are being used to facilitate illegal evictions in the State. There was no statement by Drew Harris about this. There was no action to prevent this illegal eviction. It shows whose side the State is on and it is certainly not on the side of renters.

Deputy Gino Kenny

Whoever thought that lifting the eviction ban was a good idea needs to reflect. In this case it was the Government. Since the eviction ban was lifted hundreds of families have moved into emergency accommodation. This is a fact. They should not be in this situation, which the Government has created for thousands of families. This stems back to the policy of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to have a market-led approach rather than a citizen-led approach. Other countries, in particular Austria, have a much better system of public housing that does not look to the market.

The Government speaks on this issue day in, day out and year in, year out and the situation gets worse. In recent months 15 to 20 families have come to my office to speak about the heartache and trauma of a notice to quit. Perhaps five or ten years ago these families could have gone back into the rental market but that is not the case now. The majority of these families will go into emergency accommodation. This is a fact. The Government has allowed this to happen and it continues to allow it to happen.

The trauma and stress that comes with this is incalculable. We cannot put words on this situation whereby families who had rental accommodation do not know where they will go. The stress this puts on children is unbelievable. When families go into emergency accommodation they could be stuck there for a hell of a long time because there is a lottery to get rental accommodation. Ordinary housing assistance payment rates make it virtually impossible to get any accommodation. With homeless housing assistance payment rates, people are chasing the market because it is so inflationary. The situation is the perfect storm for those families and individuals who find themselves in homeless accommodation.

The real homeless figures are probably beyond 20,000 and they will probably get worse. If we track the situation that has happened in recent months, we see it will only get worse because of the policy on the eviction ban. It would make sense in an emergency accommodation crisis, such as that which we have in the State, that until this emergency is lifted an eviction ban would be put in place for the foreseeable future with regard to landlords evicting tenants in the case of selling a property.

These are all political choices the Minister of State's party, along with other parties, have made on this. It will only get worse and there is a consequence. We can talk about political consequences but the most important consequence is for the families who find themselves in this situation, which is not of their making but of the Minister of State’s party and his Government. It is as simple as that and the Minister of State will have to wrestle with his conscience that they have put thousands and thousands of people in emergency accommodation and the consequences of that are incalculable.

Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Deputy Kieran O'Donnell)

The Government opposes the motion regarding suspension of scrutiny requirement for the Eviction Ban Bill 2022, as tabled by People Before Profit Solidarity for debate this morning.

I will begin by saying that Standing Order 180, which was mentioned, on Private Members’ Bills: Order for Committee Stage, sets out that Committee Stage consideration of a Private Member’s Bill "may only be ordered following scrutiny of the Bill by the relevant committee, save where the requirement for scrutiny has been waived by the Business Committee." The motion tabled for debate seeks a suspension of the requirement under Standing Order 180(2) that such Committee Stage consideration may only be ordered following scrutiny of the Bill by the relevant committee. Respectfully, this matter is more appropriate for the Business Committee to consider, via a request from People Before Profit Solidarity, the Bill’s sponsor, for a waiver from prelegislative scrutiny.

Standing Order 178, on scrutiny by committees of Private Members’ Bills which have passed their second reading, provides that "the Bill shall be subject to scrutiny by the relevant committee: provided that the Business Committee may waive, in accordance with Standing Order 30, the requirement for scrutiny, following a request from the member in charge of the Bill, or the relevant committee."

The Government decided on 7 March that the winter eviction ban would end as planned on 31 March with notices of termination taking effect on a phased basis out to 18 June, and that a focus on additional new supply is the best way forward. The eviction ban was brought in as a short term, emergency measure but it did not have the desired impact in reducing homelessness numbers, as the Deputies referenced themselves.

The Government's decision in early March to honour the House of the Oireachtas legal provisions for the winter eviction ban passed less than five months earlier in October was not one that we took lightly but we remain of the belief that it was the correct decision. I accept Deputy Boyd Barrett’s point that no level of homelessness is acceptable. We know there are people who are facing significant challenges, including renters who are in receipt of State assistance while waiting for a transfer to a more secure social home, renters in tenancies where their landlord is considering leaving the market and renters who want, more than anything, to buy their own home. This Government is doing and will continue to do everything it can to help these people. At the crux of everything we do is the need to increase the supply of housing. Introducing an eviction ban would not do that.

If we were to do as People Before Profit Solidarity asks in this Bill, namely, to introduce an eviction ban, we would only serve to shrink the number of homes available to rent. That is of no help to renters in short term, medium term or long term. I noted commentary here this morning to that effect.

Under Housing for All, the Government is committed to increasing housing supply, including rental accommodation, and to protecting renters while trying to keep small landlords in the system. Deputy Murphy made a comment earlier; I represent everyone. I am a Deputy in a constituency where I represent tenants-----

Deputy Paul Murphy

No, you do not.

Deputy Kieran O'Donnell

-----and small landlords. They are interrelated. We need supply and I do not think it serves any purpose to reduce the supply of rental accommodation for renters.

Any merit in introducing an eviction ban in the short term would be countered in the medium to long term by a significantly reduced housing supply for rent. Landlords would continue to exit the market and the signal would be to avoid any further investment in the sector. Research by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland indicates a net loss of 13,500 existing rental units last year alone. We need to retain small landlords in the sector while increasing housing stock for purchase and rent by private renters, cost renters and social renters, supporting home ownership and scaling up student-specific accommodation and cost rental and the transfer of a proportion of short-term lets to longer term rentals.

Under Housing for All, the Government is committed to increase supply and protect renters while trying to keep small landlords in the system. On the updated Housing for All action plan which includes action 2.1, review the operation of the private rental sector and report on policy considerations ahead of budget 2024, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is finalising this review and the party leaders are discussing the composition of budget 2024.

My Department’s review will take into account the significant regulatory changes over the past several years and the Government will consider and act on its recommendations. The review will draw conclusions on how our housing system could provide an efficient, viable, affordable, safe and secure framework for both landlords and tenants. The public consultation element of this review includes targeted engagement with various stakeholders. A stakeholder engagement forum was held on 6 July 2023 and a public consultation submission form went live on the Department’s website on Monday, 26 July 2023. The closing date for submissions was extended to 8 August 2023 arising from feedback received at the forum. As I said, the report detailing the findings of the review is being finalised.

The review is essential in properly planning future policy for the residential rented sector, including implementing measures to support both landlords and tenants. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, is actively working with colleagues across Government to put together a comprehensive new budgetary package of effective measures for both tenants and landlords.

While the Government opposes the motion tabled for debate, I would like to address some of the points raised. The July 2023 monthly homeless report was published on Friday, 25 August 2023 and showed 12,847 people were accessing State-funded emergency accommodation, an increase of 2% on June 2023. I accept that figure is way too high. One person in homelessness is too much. People present to our local authorities as homeless for a number of reasons, including receipt of a notice of termination in respect of their rented home, relationship breakdowns and the occurrence of domestic violence.

During the second quarter of this year, a combined total of 1,572 adults, as well as their dependants, exited or were prevented from entering emergency accommodation by way of a tenancy being created, an increase of 18% on the same period last year. It is important to note that people are continuously leaving emergency accommodation for more permanent arrangements and that a majority of households in State-funded emergency accommodation, 64%, have been in such facilities for 12 months or fewer, with a significant proportion accessing emergency accommodation for six months or fewer, 43%, as of June 2023.

There is no shortage of will or determination on the part of the Government or bodies to deal with the issue of homelessness. It is our top priority. Resources and funding are not an obstacle to the urgent efforts being made and required. Increasing housing supply across all tenures is the key to addressing homelessness. Last month saw commencement notices for 2,770 new homes were received by building control authorities. There were 21,316 homes commenced in the first eight months of 2023, a 14% increase. The Government is focused on accelerating social and affordable housing supply. There is record State investment of €4.5 billion, and I want to cover everything so I will not go through that.

Not all notices of termination result in an eviction or in a presentation to homelessness services. I understand the absolute anxiety of people when served a notice of termination.

Deputy Mick Barry

Do you? Were you ever evicted?

Deputy Kieran O'Donnell

While the RTB was copied with 5,735 notices of termination in the second quarter of 2023 by landlords and also recorded 15,000 applications for new tenancy registrations during that period. There is a natural churn of activity through residential rental accommodation.

In addition to the 15,000 applications to register a new tenancy in the second quarter, the RTB received 43,000 applications to renew the registration of a private tenancies and 16,600 applications to renew AHB tenancies, which is an annual requirement for existing tenancies. It is also worth noting that not all notices of termination served and copied to the RTB will be valid and if a tenant wishes to refer a dispute to the RTB.

Deputy Paul Murphy referred to the tenant in situ scheme. There are approximately 2,000 such tenant in situ purchases at various stages and 800 have been completed. The balance are at various stages. There is no limit on that scheme. It is there to help those who have been served eviction notices, who are in receipt of HAP or RAS. Others who are renting can also get their houses purchased by the State too. Where the tenants are above the social housing income eligibility limits but below the cost rental income eligibility ceilings, €66,000 or less in Dublin and €59,000 in the rest of the country, the Housing Agency can purchase the home. That is hugely important. Where the tenants wish to purchase the home from the landlord but do not have the requisite finance they can apply to the first home scheme.

It is important to note that a valid notice of termination must be served in accordance with the Residential Tenancies Acts 2004 to 2022. It can be assumed that a proportion of tenants in receipt of such notices are benefiting from Government supports such as the tenant in situ scheme.

The programme for Government recognises the important role the private rented sector plays in housing many people and will continue to play into the future. The Government will address challenges in this sector including standards, security and affordability for renters.

The Government recognises that there is a need to urgently and substantially scale up housing delivery, including emergency accommodation, affordable housing, cost-rental accommodation and social housing, including via acquisitions. This will clearly take pressure off the rental market.

Improving the standards, security and affordability for renters is a priority for me and for the Government. We are making significant changes in recognition that tenants continue to face persistent pressures in the rental and housing markets. Our approach to change must continue to be carefully balanced. We must recognise that we need landlords to provide a steady supply of rental accommodation and for that sector to be on a sound footing for both tenants and landlords.

Deputy Mick Barry

The Minister of State said "There is no shortage of will or determination... to deal with the issue of homelessness. It remains our top priority." If that were true, it would not say too much for the effectiveness of the Government, would it? Since it lifted the eviction ban, the number of people forced to live in emergency accommodation goes up month after month. The Minister of State says it is a top priority. In that case the Government is not very effective and is failing all along the line.

However, I do not believe the Minister of State; I do not think it is a top priority for the Government. It is not that it likes to see the numbers going up; they are embarrassing for it. It releases them on a Friday afternoon so that the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste can keep a low profile over the weekend and thereby avoid embarrassment. However, its priority - to use the Minister of State's word - is not the tenants but the market. Its priority is the landlords. Its priority is not the tenants. At the moment in Fine Gael circles with an election coming up, its Members probably feel they have lost the dressing room with the tenants at this stage and that they will not get too many votes from tenants in the first place. They are happy to let the market rip and let the tenants go to hell. The Minister of State can shake his head all he likes but the tenants and people who discern things about politics looking into this debate will know or feel that I speak the truth on this matter.

Let us look at some of the facts. Since the People Before Profit Bill passed Second Stage on 22 February, 1,093 people have been forced into emergency accommodation; 398 of them are children. A total of 5,735 notices to quit were issued in the three months of April, May and June. There was a 21% increase in the number of notices to quit for the first three months of this year. Let us pause and think about this. That indicates the worst has not hit yet; it is in the pipeline. We will see a see a surge of homelessness and a surge of people being forced to go into emergency accommodation over the winter, which is the worst time of the year it can happen. It is on the head of the Minister of State and his Government. He comes in here and has the nerve to trot out these half-baked little commonplaces. One person in homelessness is one person too many. I have heard that about a dozen times from a dozen different Ministers. Do they go to classes with PR companies to learn how to recite these things? Do they even think of what they are saying when their policies mean that homelessness is increasing month on month?

The Minister of State said that he understands the anxiety of someone who has been forced into homelessness. Does he? Does he understand the anxiety of someone who has been forced into homelessness? Has he ever been forced into homelessness himself? Has he ever had a notice to quit land on the other side of his letterbox? Has he ever been in a situation of having to feed kids and keep a roof over their head while on a low income and the landlord, who has been given the green light by the Government, issues him with a notice to quit? I doubt that he has; I will stand corrected if he has been. I await his reply with interest. However, I doubt that he really understands, for example, the anxiety of a mother in a situation like that. How could he until such time as he has stood in her shoes?

I will give a real-life example from the city of that Cork. On the south side of the city at the moment on Dean Street beside St. Fin Barre's Cathedral, eviction notices have been served for an entire building containing 24 units. The landlady issued the notices to quit at the end of May, a couple of months after the Government had given her the green light to do such a thing. Now people are facing eviction at Christmas. Some of the notices to quit are for 27 November and some are for 10 January. One of the people who has a November eviction notice needs to go for an operation which relates to their heart in November itself. Some of those tenants have been there for ten years and more. Apart from the Minister of State present, who voted to lift the eviction ban? It was voted for by the Ministers, Deputies Micheál Martin, Coveney and Michael McGrath, who are just down the road across the constituency line which is a couple of hundred metres away. People will remember who is responsible for giving the green light for this.

By the way, in the absence of the reinstatement of the of the eviction ban, I understand Cork City Council so far has done three deals on tenant in situ. This really needs to be stepped up, but it should apply the tenant in situ scheme and purchase that building to stop people being evicted into homelessness and also to take into public ownership an historic building which was built in 1760. It is where the choir for the cathedral used to live and is a listed building.

I wish to make some brief points about the upcoming budget as it relates to this issue. I would say that it is incredible but actually unfortunately it is entirely credible, given where it is coming from, to hear Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Ministers and Deputies talking about cutting tax for landlords in the budget. I think even the mandarins in the Department of Finance are opposed to this, pointing to the unbelievable position where passive income for property rental would be taxed at a lower rate than earned income. In other words, a tenant who is a working person and is in the PAYE system, pays 30%, 40%, 50% or more of their income over to the landlord in rent while the landlord is taxed at a lower rate than the tenant. Is the Government for real? It will face an absolute hammering not just from People Before Profit-Solidarity but from other Deputies in this House and from all the housing charities and campaigning groups in the country if it decides to go down that road and create a two-tier system, worsening the situation.

I also want to make a brief reference to some breaking news overnight. One of the reasons we have such high levels of homelessness and so many people forced to live in emergency accommodation in this country is that people cannot afford the rent. This was pointed to last night by the Living Wage Technical Group which recommended an increase in the rate of the living wage. It pointed to rising energy costs, food costs and rent costs as a reason for doing this. I am in favour of cutting rents and I am in favour of freezing those cut rents. I am also in favour of increasing the income of renters so that they are better able to afford the rents.

The Minister of State has failed the lowest paid workers in this country by having a completely unrealistically low national minimum wage at a rate of €11.30 an hour. I stand for a national minimum wage of €17 an hour. I think that is what someone would need to survive in this day and age with the cost-of-living crisis. The living wage technical group, in its wisdom, has recommended a figure of €14.80. It says that is the minimum that is needed to live a dignified life in this society. That is €3.50 higher than the minimum wage the Government has introduced. I would like to hear the Minister of State and other Ministers explain how they can justify that. There is a proposal for a living wage of €14.80 and the Government is asking people to live not on €1 less, €2 less or €3 less, but €3.50 less. It shows a complete lack of understanding and is an unsustainable position.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

There are approximately 13,000 people, including 4,000 children, sleeping in emergency accommodation funded by the Minister of State's Department. Fine Gael has been in government since 2011 and, according to the census of that year, there were only 3,808 people officially categorised as homeless. That means that in all of the time the Minister of State's party has been in government, homelessness has increased by a staggering 250%. Just let that sink in for a second. Three years ago, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael formed a coalition. Two years ago, a new housing plan was published. Just in the past two years, homelessness has increased by 56%. Child homelessness, with young children sleeping in emergency accommodation for a year, two years or three years, has increased by 78%.

If the Minister of State is coming here and telling us that tackling homelessness is the Government's top priority, and after 11 years, homelessness has increased by 250%, with child homelessness increasing by 78% in the past two years, I would hate to see what the results would be if it were not prioritised by the Government. There have been 12 years of Fine Gael. It has been propped up by Fianna Fáil for seven years. Every single year, homelessness has increased. The Government is making things worse. The longer those parties are in government, the worse this crisis will get.

What is worse about the figures is they are not even the true level of homelessness. As the Minister of State knows, that 13,000 figure does not include women and children in domestic violence refuges funded by Tusla and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. It does not include the 5,000 men, women and children trapped in direct provision who have their leave to remain but cannot get out because of the housing crisis and are essentially using it as emergency accommodation. It does not include the several hundred men and women who, tonight, will sleep in hostels not funded by the State but by religious orders. It does not even begin to contemplate the unknown number of people who are hidden homeless and are forced to sofa surf or sleep in overcrowded, cramped or unsuitable conditions with family and friends. Even if you take those initial categories, the real level of adults and children in emergency accommodation tonight is somewhere closer to 18,000. That is the Minister of State's top priority.

We have to ask ourselves why this is the case. There is a very straightforward answer. It is because, for every one of those years, from 2011 to the present, the Minister of State's Government, whether supported through confidence and supply, Independents, or now Fianna Fáil, has failed to deliver an adequate supply of social and affordable homes. It is not to do with what is going on in the private rental sector or other factors of the economy but because the Government has never planned, funded and delivered a sufficient volume of social and affordable homes to meet that need. That is the reason.

Look at the Government's record over recent years. Deputy Darragh O'Brien has been the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage since 2020. Every single year, he has not even delivered the very low level of social and affordable housing delivery the Government promises. From 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022, he blamed Covid, Brexit and inflation. What about this year? Those excuses are gone. We saw the figures snuck up onto the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage's website late on Friday. It is only at 15% of new build social housing delivered by halfway through this year, at 1,400 units out of 9,100. Sure, the Government will do better before the end of the year, but just like last year, because the Government was at a similar point last year, it will be a real challenge to meet the 9,100 new builds. The Government did not meet its 9,000 target last year and it is likely it will not meet it this year. The Government's affordable housing delivery is even worse. A total of 101 affordable purchase homes were delivered in the first half of this year. Twenty-two affordable cost-rental units were delivered in the first half of this year and many of them are not even affordable because their rents are at €1,400 or €1,500 a month. To come in here and say the Government's plan is working, that it is the Government's top priority, and it is the biggest level of investment in the history of the State is just not true. The figures speak for themselves.

Sinn Féin enthusiastically supports the motion that is before us today. I remind the Minister of State the sponsoring Deputies of the Bill did exactly what he said they should have done. They went to the Business Committee and sought permission from the Business Committee to waive pre-legislative scrutiny. The Business Committee did what it always does and asked our Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage if we would waive it. We had a very robust argument. A minority of us said "Yes" and that, given the urgency of this matter, we should get it through into formal Committee Stage, but the Government members of the committee blocked it because they have a majority. In fact, not only have they blocked this one, we have about 20 Private Member's Bills, and this is not the only one dealing with homelessness, stuck unaddressed because there is a majority of Government members on that committee who will not allow us to progress Bills. I am not the only Deputy with Bills similar to our colleagues here. Almost all the Opposition has similar ones.

The reason that People Before Profit-Solidarity has taken this measure is because the Government is blocking, in committee, the progress of a Bill this House agreed. Of course, we know the Minister of State did not mean to agree it. We know it was a mistake, but the House decided this. Why not let the Bill progress? It is because the Government wants to conceal the truth.

A ban on no-fault evictions is not the solution to the problem and the proposers of the motion know that, but it gives us crucial breathing space. When Eoghan Murphy introduced the Covid-19 ban on evictions, as has been mentioned, family homelessness plummeted by over 68%. Contrary to the Minister of State's claim today and the Taoiseach's claim before, the temporary ban on no-fault evictions that was introduced in September last year had an impact because, month on month, the figures from the Minister of State's Department show dramatic increases in family and child homelessness. There was a separate issue with a persistent and rising level of single person homelessness, but it was beginning to have an effect. The overall rate of presentations in emergency accommodation occupation was falling month on month. If the Government had left it in train for a further period, it would have gone down further.

The real scandal of the Government's response to the ban on evictions is that for that period of months, it sat on its hands. Eoghan Murphy closed the tenant in situ scheme, to his eternal shame, and the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, refused to open it for two years. It was reopened in April 2022 and virtually nothing was bought from April 2022 until March 2023. The reason was the Minister would not listen to the advice of this side of the Chamber and did not instruct councils what to do. It is beginning to work and I acknowledge that. The real shame is the Government did not do it a year ago. How many families would have been prevented from entering homelessness if the Government had done what we reasonably asked 12 to 24 months earlier? The tenant in situ cost-rental scheme is a shambles and is not working. I raised this with the Minister recently. The Government really needs to get its act together for those people who are not eligible for social housing support but are also at risk of homelessness.

What is even worse are the two crucial things the Government could and should have done during the ban on no-fault evictions. We urged the Government to do them but it did not. It did not increase and accelerate the delivery of social and affordable homes. We told the Government how to do it. Local authority housing managers have told the Government how to do it. Approved housing bodies have told the Government how to do it and it is refusing to do it. I proposed to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage last September using emergency procurement and planning powers, delivering an additional stream of social and affordable homes above its existing targets, specifically and exclusively for our pensioners who are in emergency accommodation and families with children. Not unlike what the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, did with respect to modular accommodation for people fleeing the war in Ukraine, the Minister of State's Department could have done something similar and brought on train at least 1,000 additional units. That would have reduced the number of households in emergency accommodation during that period, but the Department did none of that.

We are back in this situation because of the Government's low level of social and affordable housing targets, its even lower level of output, and its failure to put in place an emergency package of measures to reduce the flow of families and singles into homelessness and accelerate people's exit from homelessness. We are back here having the same discussion. We do not want to propose a ban on evictions. We want to welcome the Government delivering huge volumes of social and affordable homes and homelessness being eradicated. That is what we would like to be doing but the Government's failure has forced us here today.

On Friday, yet again the Minister of State's Department will release the figures for the number of adults and children in Department-funded emergency accommodation. That number will show an increase. More people will be in emergency accommodation, and they will be spending longer in emergency accommodation than ever before. While I support this motion and the policy proposals that all members of the Opposition have outlined, the real solution to the homelessness crisis is to get Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael the hell out of government. Every single year for 11 years homelessness has increased. You do not have to be a brain surgeon to work out the logic. The only way we will get homelessness moving in the other direction is to get those parties out of power. The only way we can do that is through a general election. The sooner that happens the better.

Deputy Paul Donnelly

I thank the People Before Profit-Solidarity Deputies for bringing forward the motion. As we head into the winter, many more families and workers will face a winter of unbelievable stress. Many thousands fear the letter from the landlord and the knowledge that the chance of them getting somewhere in the so-called free market is virtually impossible. I, like many colleagues and, I am sure, the Minister of State's office, get representations from people on a weekly basis who are desperate to find out what the next steps are. What do they do? How can we help them to ensure they do not end up in homeless accommodation?

I heard recently of an older retired person living with her daughter in rented accommodation whose landlord is selling. She has never been on the housing list and has always rented. Her notice of termination is due to fall on 31 December. Due to health reasons, they cannot move down to the country as they need to be close to the hospital they attend. I am sure cases like these play on the Minister of State's mind; they certainly play on ours. We are constantly concerned and worried about these people who are facing homelessness. People who are overholding are terrified the day is soon coming when they will face homeless accommodation. So many people are now overholding who will be working through the RTB process.

I could reel off case after case, as could the Minister of State, which is why I find the resistance to the eviction ban puzzling. It is clear from the statistics that this Government has lost control of the homelessness crisis as levels of homelessness continue to rise. The statistics pointed out by Deputy Ó Broin are shocking. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, said last year, "the aim of the emergency winter eviction ban is to afford time for housing supply to increase and to reduce the burden on homelessness services and the pressure on tenants and the residential tenancies market." The reality is, and the figures prove, that homeless services are still overburdened, housing supply has not increased, and the cliff edge facing many of these tenants is adding huge pressure.

We support the reintroduction of the ban on no-fault evictions as part of an emergency response to reduce the number of people in emergency accommodation who are falling into homelessness. Next week, Deputy Ó Broin will once again outline our ambitious plans for commencing the largest public housing building programme in the history of the State, which will deliver 20,000 public homes a year. We also want to give renters a break by including a three-year freeze on rent increases and putting one month's rent back in every private renter's pocket up to a maximum of €2,000 a year.

At this stage, even the Minister of State cannot believe the Government's housing strategy is working. It is time for a change. Many of the people - we see regular polling - and those I speak to in Dublin West also believe it is time for a change of government. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil policies over the decades have caused this housing crisis. The longer they are in power, and the proof is in the pudding and the statistics, the worse it will get.

Deputy Martin Browne

I also thank People Before Profit-Solidarity for tabling the motion. There are 17 properties to rent in County Tipperary on daft.ie. Emergency accommodation is regularly full in that county when we inquire about it. Some 68% of people in their late 20s still live at home because Ireland's housing market is in crisis. Those are just some of the figures that form the backdrop to what we are dealing with. All that is happening right now and not in the distant past. It is not something this Government can claim to have rectified because it has not, nor has it even made an attempt to. There has been a 21% increase in notices to quit in Tipperary in the second quarter of this year. These are the challenges facing people whose Government thinks it is a worthwhile sacrifice to consign people to emergency accommodation rather than implement a no-fault eviction ban as part of the emergency response to reduce the number of people falling into homelessness. The Taoiseach himself voiced this opinion.

While the Government did not oppose the Eviction Ban Bill when it was debated on 22 February, it only refrained from doing so because the Minister of State did not have his eye on the ball that night. In the weeks and months since, the Government has allowed this Bill to languish unaddressed, while the Minister of State's party and Government colleagues have continued to prevent any backbench Bills that have passed Second Stage from progressing to Committee Stage. All the while, a steady stream of concerned constituents contacted every one of us in this Chamber as the number of notices to quit mounted up. This is the reality of the situation for people, yet this is how the Government treats them. The Minister of State will hide behind the steady stream of figures when he is confronted with them by the Opposition. However, the fact remains that the Government's affordable housing record is dreadful. Social housing provision is at a snail's pace, homelessness is at record levels, and children are living in emergency accommodation. That is Ireland 2023 under the Government's watch.

We need this Government gone because it is only making matters worse for people. It had its opportunity and it failed the people of Ireland. Next week, Sinn Féin will outline its ambitious plan for delivering 20,000 homes a year. We make no apologies for the fact that we support the reintroduction of the ban on no-fault evictions as part of an emergency response to reduce the number of people becoming homeless. The Government has done untold damage. Only a change of government, a change of housing Minister and a new housing plan will allow us to undo decades of bad Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael housing policy.

Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú

We are back again having almost the same conversation. I thank People Before Profit-Solidarity for putting the motion forward. I have looked through daft.ie as I usually do. It does not make for any better reading. There is a good sprinkling on that website of, I think, 11 properties in Dundalk and 12 in its surrounds. That is one more than when I looked last week. There is also a good sprinkling of €2,500 a month houses in there. I am not entirely sure how this entire system has not fallen apart altogether.

The homeless numbers speak for themselves; they are at 12,847. We have a figure from July of 152 homeless people in County Louth. A considerable number of those people seem to be aged between 25 and 44. We know that is not the true number, however. It does not include all the people who are sofa surfing or who have not been able to get on the housing list. We know of all the people, especially single people, who are making use of very bad solutions because they know they are facing homelessness. Do not get me wrong; I am very glad Simon exists and those services are there, although I accept these are not necessarily services many of us would like to have to make use of. In particular, if we are talking about people who have issues, and may have been attempting to get clean, the services in those places are not necessarily conducive to that. The wider issue is what we do not have. Sometimes, people talk about homelessness and street homelessness and say it is a different kettle of fish, which relates to mental health and addiction issues. However, my issue is that we do not have any of the services we require for that. In fairness to local authorities, they have all these issues thrown at them and none of the resources to be able to deal with them, even if they can contact the HSE or whoever else. That will be an issue.

I am sure I am like many other people who welcome it when Peter McVerry or whoever else steps into the fray, does the needful stuff and someone is housed, but they do not have the wraparound support services for those people. Sometimes, there are issues in respect of people with, as I said, addiction issues. This happened in the estate where I live, Bay Estate, where people did not have the skill sets and the supports were not there from a harm reduction point of view. Let us just say it did not end particularly well.

Their cases involved a fair amount of advocacy by me and others, including many of the residents.

We can speak about the eviction ban not working, but its removal certainly did not work. Or, rather, it worked exactly as we expected, and we are now dealing with a catastrophic number of homeless. All of these are individuals, so you can imagine how many horror stories there are. Who knows what long-term impact that will have on people's lives?

We need to ensure we are delivering. Next week, Deputy Ó Broin will put a straightforward case. As he mentioned, county managers and AHBs have spoken to the Government about this matter, yet we have seen nothing that delivers any level of affordable or cost-rental housing or a sizeable amount of council housing. We can talk all day about modern methods of construction, but I have not seen 3D concrete printing, the use of modern timber frames or a large number of modular builds. They are not the solution individually, but they are part of it when taken together.

Other services and resources are required. For example, there have been failures in estate management across the board.

Deputy Ivana Bacik

I thank Deputy Bríd Smith and her colleagues for tabling this motion, which I am glad to support on behalf of the Labour Party. I echo the words of Deputy Ó Broin in pointing out to the Government that, unfortunately, this is another example of a cynical procedural manoeuvre that we are seeing used all too often to delay and effectively neuter Opposition Bills by pushing them off, putting them into lengthy processes and delaying their Second Readings for 12 months and so on. As such, this motion is a sensible move to try to get around that procedural manoeuvre. The manoeuvre is usually used to delay Opposition Bills the Government supports. This is a slightly unusual situation, though, as the Government inadvertently did not oppose the Bill. That is all the more reason to use this motion to ensure the Bill makes progress, given its importance.

Shelter is among the most of basic human needs and human rights, yet thousands of people in this country are deprived of a safe and secure home. Many more are in insecure housing, with adults still living in childhood bedrooms, couch surfing or paying exorbitant rents. I have just come from a meeting where, as often happens, an individual took me aside and told me about a personal difficulty in accessing rental accommodation. This individual was in a good and well-paying job but was unable to find affordable accommodation to rent in Dublin city. I hear this constantly from my constituents and from people around the country.

The Government has failed the 12,847 people who are homeless, including almost 4,000 children. Each of these has an individual story of homelessness and the deep human trauma that results from that. These are the people living in State homelessness services, but we know there are many more.

The Government justifies the shameful decision to lift the temporary no-fault eviction ban on the basis it was not working and homelessness was continuing to rise with the ban in place, but we were told during the ban's duration that it was working in keeping the numbers from rising further. Since the ban was lifted, we have seen those numbers increase, just as we predicted. None of us takes any pleasure in the fact our predictions have materialised. The same predictions were made by NGOs and front-line workers in homelessness services. Despite that, the Government proceeded. It did so without any evidence basis. The Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, may be aware I received a reply to a parliamentary question at around the time the ban was to be lifted that revealed that a five-month seasonal weather forecast was the sole evidential consideration underpinning the decision to lift the ban. The decision was made on the basis the winter had seasonally come to an end. There was no attempt to measure the impact of the ban or to assess whether its lifting would lead to the increase in homelessness that has since occurred. No meaningful contingencies were put in place either despite Government policies. Some of the policies the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage announced in March to justify the ban's lifting have still not come into effect. Many of us in opposition have been trying on behalf of constituents to see how schemes like the tenant in situ scheme will work in practice, but we are getting very little by way of substantive answers.

The Labour Party made a constructive suggestion to enable an evidence basis for the continuance of the ban at least until homelessness rates had reduced for four consecutive months. It was a reasonable proposal but one the Taoiseach stated he, unfortunately, could not accept. Government figures have made it clear there is no intention even to examine the idea of an evidence basis for resuming the temporary no-fault ban. Some comments from members of the Government have revealed they do not understand what a no-fault eviction ban is or that they believe it is somehow an outlandish measure that should only be seen as an emergency one-off. The reality is that, far from being outlandish or radical and with the tentative Government support we saw, restrictions on no-fault evictions are the norm in comparable European countries. We should be learning from other countries. In Finland, for example, homelessness has fallen sharply following the introduction of a housing first policy, whereby people living in homelessness receive shelter and counselling with no preconditions and four in every five people make their way back into stable living and to having safe and secure homes of their own. Such a programme provides people with dignity and a fair start and is an investment in society. Given we have such a crisis in supply and affordability, we need to see such measures being adopted alongside an eviction ban until supply increases. We all agree supply has to increase. That is the real answer, but when we in opposition make constructive proposals calling on the Government to increase the supply of housing and act with greater urgency and ambition, we are met with derision and dismissal from the Government benches. That is unacceptable.

Like many others, I attended briefings this morning from IBEC and Chambers Ireland. I will attend a Focus Ireland event shortly. What we are hearing from employer bodies, business organisations, homelessness organisations and civil society groups is that housing supply needs to increase, the Government needs to take radical, urgent and ambitious measures to increase housing supply, and its targets for delivery are still too low. Boasting about achieving 30,000 new builds per year when we know the real level of need is closer to 50,000 is not good enough. The knock-on effect of this on the rental sector has meant an increase in evictions and homelessness.

Turning to international comparators, let us take our nearest neighbour, Britain. Extraordinarily, the secretary of state with responsibility for housing, Mr. Michael Gove, who is hardly a socialist ideologue, has now recognised the need to tackle the blight of no-fault evictions. As such, even senior members of the Tory party are considering measures like this. Our Government should be doing the same. Unfortunately, it has again taken a dismissive approach towards constructive Opposition proposals.

I wish to mention the Labour Party's Housing (Homeless Families) Bill 2017 on prioritising the rights of children in homelessness. The Bill has been pushed, promoted and endorsed by Focus Ireland, but the Government has stalled and dismissed it. It has dismissed our renter's rights Bill and the Bill Deputy Bríd Smith and her colleagues introduced. This tactic of dismissing and delaying has become the Government's modus operandi. It is no response to the lived reality and hardships of our constituents. Where we make constructive and sensible proposals, we should get better engagement from the Government. It appears a deeply cynical manoeuvre to use procedural measures to delay Bills that have been supported by the Government through Second Stage, even if that support was inadvertent in this Bill's case. The sort of procedural tactic we are seeing the Government use in respect of Bills stymies the legislative process and undermines the democratic will of Members, who have voted to see Bills go through Second Stage. It stifles our constructive critiques of Government policy because it neuters the Opposition's ability to introduce Bills. Introducing and debating legislation should be our bread and butter. Instead, we are seeing stalling tactics and cynical manoeuvres. That is no answer to those 12,847 people who are experiencing the deep trauma and distress of homelessness.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan

I thank People Before Profit for its work on tabling this motion.

It is very important that this is highlighted. As was just said, there is no excuse for delays or stalling on this issue. It is an urgent area. It is cynical for this to be passed through Second Stage but for it not to be progressed as urgently as it needs to be thereafter. The position of the Social Democrats is that we fully support a reinstatement of a ban on no-fault evictions. This situation in most European countries is that no-fault evictions are out of the norm and when a renter pays their rent, they cannot be evicted. In most European countries, when the landlord goes to sell, it is absolutely fine and there is no issue with it or bother. The tenant-renter stays in their home and starts paying their rent into a new bank account when ownership transfers. That is what happens; the landlord is able to sell and does not have to worry about the renter and the renter does not have to worry about finding a new home, potentially uprooting their children from school and perhaps having to move from the community in which they have built ties. They may be involved in the local GAA club, parish, bingo or Tidy Towns. They might be just getting to know their neighbours and their children might be making friends in school. None of that is uprooted under this approach, and there is stability in the sector.

The interesting thing about rental sectors in other European countries where renters have this form of security when they pay their rent is that there is still investment in the sector. In fact, some European countries have much larger rental sectors than Ireland. It is claimed by the Government that we could not reinstate the ban on no-fault evictions because it would affect investment, yet we are surrounded by countries in which there is plenty of investment in larger rental sectors. Somehow, investors in other European countries are able to invest in rental sectors that are humane and do not have that massive disruption to renters' lives. It can all work and exist. Somehow, the Government does not have confidence in people investing in Ireland that they would be able to do likewise. That is a bit of a slur against most landlords. Most of the landlords I talk to are absolutely concerned about the welfare of renters and tenants. It is certainly not all - I have dealt with some circumstances in which the opposite is the case. I engage with a lot of landlords who are genuinely very concerned about the welfare of their tenants. It would not meet the levels of resistance that the Government seems to say it will. In effect, that really is a slur on the majority of landlords.

It is worth stating that the country in Europe with the largest rental sector is Switzerland. It regulates the sector well and if a renter pays rent in Switzerland and the landlord goes to sell their property, the renter is not evicted; they stay in their home. The conversation in most European countries is very different from the one we are having. It is about how to support renters and, indeed, landlords in situations in which renters fall behind in their rent, what can be done to ensure the renter can stay in their tenancy and how to support the renter and the landlord to ensure that in terms of mediation payments plans and so forth. That is the conversation they have in other European countries. It is very different from the one we are having now. It is the conversation we should be having.

Much of this goes back to some sort of view from the Government, based on some sort of Irish exceptionalism, that we are incapable of having a rental system like most other European countries. I do not know what the Government thinks about Irish people that we are not capable of having decent security of tenure for people who pay their rent, as is the norm. Look at countries like Finland and what it has done to virtually eradicate homelessness. Is the Government seriously telling us it thinks there is something about Finnish people that we do not have as a country that we could not do likewise? I do not think so. Yet, the Government keeps following policies it knows are detrimental in terms of homelessness. There is a claim from the Government that reinstating the ban on no-fault evictions would drive more landlords out. There has been a constant claim from the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage that there has been a large exodus of landlords. That claim simply does not stack up. The census data is very clear that, since 2016, the number of households in the private rental sector has increased by 7%. That has not been reflected in the figures of registrations with the RTB for a different reason. I get constant complaints from landlords about the complexity of registering their tenancies with the RTB. A landlord contacted me recently and told me they had sent in their form six times and it was sent back six times. They were not told what was wrong with the form and could not talk to a human being and have a discussion or find out information about how to register. These landlords are genuinely trying to register their tenancies and are faced with a bureaucratic system that simply will not communicate with them and just keeps sending the form back to them. If we want registrations to go up, we need to listen to landlords and have a system with humans with whom they can engage.

The claim that the ban on no-fault evictions did not work is not true. The most effective thing any government has done to reduce homelessness in the last number of years was the first ban on evictions, when homelessness fell considerably. The second ban on evictions, which was more limited, had an effect. There was only been one month in the last 19 during which the number of homeless people fell, which was when that eviction ban was in place. At the tail end it was beginning to have an effect but the Government withdrew it. We always said that there was a lagging effect between introducing the eviction ban and the results. It takes several months because, for the first while when they get evicted, people often stay with friends and family on floors and couches. None of that shows up in the homeless figures. Several months after that, you begin to see the numbers in emergency accommodation. It was working. This is a deliberate choice by the Government. The Government is also choosing not to act. There is a lack of humanity in the approach. The Government should reinstate the eviction ban and extend tenant in situ purchases. Focus Ireland recommended that we need about 5,000 a year to prevent more families from becoming homeless. The Government should do that straight away. Instead, the target the Government is currently working under is just 1,500, well below the actual need. For example, in the first half of this year, in Dublin alone, more than 4,300 notices to quit were issued. Yet, the target for tenant in situ in Dublin is 725. If the focus was not on tax relief for landlords, for example, there is a huge amount that could be done to prevent homelessness.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

The housing crisis affects everybody in society at some level. Some are suffering significantly but there are very few who are not affected by it throughout the State. First of all, the housing crisis is a life-and-death issue. It is leading to significant deaths. It is creating a situation in which people are being forced into emergency accommodation, with all of the negative aspects that entails. For a youngster growing up in emergency accommodation, their whole ability to socialise and study, for good nutrition and all those elements of their life are radically restricted by the housing crisis. It is leading to hundreds of thousands of people being in housing distress, either having difficulty paying mortgages or rent or living in the spare rooms of their parents, not able to get accommodation for themselves. It also significantly affects public services. Doctors, nurses and teachers are not able to live in particular regions because prices are far too high. Indeed, the whole system of spatial development in this country means that if you are a youngster and have a college degree, you pretty much have to move to Dublin to get a college-type job but you cannot live in Dublin because of the prices of houses; you have to live 30, 40 or 50 miles away. That means you are part of the commuter hell experience people are forced to live in throughout the State. Even levels of private and foreign direct investment are now reducing due to the fact that we have such a crisis in housing.

As I said, it is first of all a life-and-death issue. We in Aontú have been raising this consistently over the last number of years. The figures are shocking. In the whole country, only Dublin records the number of people who die in homelessness. No other local authority records people who lose their lives in homelessness. In 2018, we found out that 47 homeless people died in Dublin. In 2019, 49 homeless people died in Dublin. It became obvious to me in summer 2020 that something drastic was happening.

We learned that homeless people were being denied services and help in Dublin and told to go home to their counties of origin, even though, because of Covid, a person could be arrested for crossing county boundaries at that time. The Government promised an investigation. Tragically, that investigation has dragged on for years. In 2020, 76 people died in homelessness in Dublin, an incredible figure. It represents a 60% increase on the death rate in the previous year. The following year, 115 people died in homelessness in Dublin, and last year it was 95 people. It is incredible that so many people are dying in Dublin, in large part because of homelessness.

Behind each of these statistics there is, or was, a living human being - a person who had family and friends. The age cohort of these deaths is also very concerning. Of the 20 people who died in homelessness in Dublin so far this year, ten were between the ages of 30 and 49. Two thirds of the people who died in homelessness this year were younger than me. This is an horrendous stain on the record of this society of protecting the people who are most in need. Deputies have no choice but to support the motion. In this type of humanitarian disaster, there is a need to pull out all the stops to protect those who are most vulnerable. Aontú supports a ban on no-fault eviction in a housing crisis.

The way the Government is seeking to delay the Bill is extremely undemocratic. The idea that a Bill has the democratic mandate of the House but the Government is seeking to delay its passage through the Dáil is political chicanery. It is two fingers to the democratic will of the Dáil. Even the tool of delaying Bills shows the lack of cohesion that exists between Government parties. The Government cannot come to a decision on a political way forward, so it literally kicks the can down the road in terms of making a decision on it. That is the situation we have in respect of the Government.

I refer to the number of local authority houses that are empty. My office put in a freedom of information request to every local authority during the summer and we found out there are 3,500 local authority homes in the State currently vacant. There are 12,800 people in homeless or emergency accommodation, of whom 4,000 are children, yet the State is sitting on 3,500 empty homes. Putting people into emergency accommodation is a humanitarian disaster. There is a cost in human terms but there is also a financial cost. It cost hundreds of millions of euro to pay for emergency accommodation for people. The Government is doing that while it is sitting on 3,500 empty homes. In responding to the information we published approximately a fortnight ago, the Taoiseach stated there was good reason these homes were empty. It has taken, on average, eight months to turn around a local authority home. In some cases it has taken two years for a local authority to turn around a home and re-let it. It takes, on average, three weeks to turn around a private rental home. How can the private sector flip accommodation in three weeks and get it back into use while local authorities are taking eight months to do so? It is because a landlord who owns a rental accommodation cannot afford to leave it empty for eight months or two years. The Government can afford to leave it empty because there is no cost to the Government. Cost does not matter to the Government. Even the human cost does not seem to matter to the Government.

In addition, the freedom of information requests I submitted show there are 95,000 people currently on housing waiting lists across the country and 70,000 people availing of HAP, not to mention people on RAS, with €1.3 billion from the State's coffers going into the pockets of private landlords at a time of crisis. That money could be used to invest in building State housing stock that actually has an asset value that will last into the future but, instead, once paid over for rent, it is dead money that goes into the pockets of private landlords. Those houses come out of the private rental sector, which makes it harder for people in the private rental sector to get a house, which also pushes up the cost of rent for those houses.

Right now in Navan, in my county, there are only three properties for rent for under €1,500 a month, yet the local authority has 56 empty houses. Dublin has well over 900 empty local authority homes, while Cork has 500 and Limerick has 250. There is no urgency in this Government in respect of the housing crisis. Having empty homes in a housing crisis is tantamount to exporting food in a time of famine.

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae

I wish to declare an interest in the provision of accommodation to all categories of people. I thank People Before Profit for bringing this important motion and issue before the Dáil again. I was glad to support the continuation of the ban on the previous occasion. I am glad to support the motion because it is important. There were 5,735 notices of termination issued between April and June. That is 21% higher. It is what we told the Government would happen. These are not numbers or statistics; they are mothers, fathers, grandmothers, young people and children. They are real people who are told they must leave the accommodation in which they are living. I see it and I understand it 100%.

I ask that we stop using the nonsensical word "landlords" in here. There is no such thing as landlords. They are property owners. They are people who own property and provide it for the accommodation of others.

At the Killarney, Kenmare, Tralee, Listowel, Killorglin and Cahersiveen clinics I hold regularly, people continually tell me they have been issued with a notice to quit. It is far more predominant now than at any time previously. It is the result of the way we in here voted. That is why I am supporting the motion today and will do so in future. I can see 100% why property owners might be concerned, but there can be a balance and that is what we are trying to do. We need to ensure people who are paying their rent and keeping their side of an agreement and have no other place to go are protected. If people are blackguarding and not paying rent and not maintaining a property, that is a different story and there is a way of dealing with that.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

There is no doubt that housing for renters and people without homes is a desperate problem. The only answer is to build more social housing. I do not thank People Before Profit for bringing the motion before the House. I firmly believe People Before Profit and its motions have caused more harm to the private rental sector than all the rest of what is happening in the country.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Is it a family split? Are two brothers set against one another?

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

People Before Profit is the main cause of it. It has house owners frightened away from renting their housing. At the clinics I hold in my neck of the woods - I hold them all over the county - people tell me they have houses to rent for €600, €700 or €800 a month but they are afraid that if they let people in for the year or two in which they want to rent the property, they will not be able to get the people out again. I am asking the RTB and Threshold to adopt a different role. They should go out sourcing houses, talk to the people who own them and encourage them to rent the houses. The Government should reduce the tax on those renting out properties. If people have to pay 51% or 52% on the €600 or €700 they receive for renting out a house, they will not bother renting it out in the first place, given the cost of keeping the house going and replacing washing machines and gas cookers and all that.

I could say a lot more, but the Government is doing more harm than good.

Deputy Michael Collins

I will be agreeing with this motion because I have seen what the lifting of the eviction ban has done. It has added to more difficulties for people who are seeking a home. They are being evicted from their homes and have no rights. I attend an average of ten clinics a week and once a month I might do another 15 or 20 in small rural communities. Every Saturday, I hold a clinic at 9.30 a.m. in my office in Skibbereen, one in the Brewery Bar in Clonakilty at 11 a.m., another one in my office in Bandon at 12 noon, one in the Parkway Hotel at 2 p.m. and one at 3 p.m. in the Boston Bar. I do that every Saturday without fail, 52 weeks of the year. I was in my clinic in Kinsale recently and five people came into me, three of whom were in a housing crisis. Two of them were facing eviction and one of them had to go home and leave their house. They had no protection whatsoever. I respect the people who come in here and say we are always shouting and that maybe we are forgetting about the people who own the homes. There are shocking people out there who will not leave homes. There seem to be no protections for house owners, as such. I do not like the word "landlord". Some of them are people who might have one or two houses. They are coming to me and telling me that there are people in their homes who have no intention of paying rent and who can stay there because they have rights to. People should not have the right to be in a home if they do not want to pay or make an effort to pay. However, for the good genuine people who are trying their best and living in a house and getting an eviction order, it is a terrible plight, especially with the winter coming and coming up to Christmas. They have nowhere to turn.

While I have the floor for the last 16 seconds, I should say that there is a huge crisis out there with once-off planning in rural Ireland to which this Government seems to have turned a blind eye. We are splashing houses here, there and everywhere, but when an innocent person wants to get a house in their own community or in the couple of fields that their parents own, they are being refused planning permission. It is a huge issue.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

I, too, support the motion today, and not because I am fan of the hard left or People Before Profit-Solidarity. The Government has led itself into a disastrous situation. It has gone down a cul-de-sac and will not build public houses. It will not allow people to build houses on their own land in the country. It was not this Government but a previous Fine Gael Government that closed down all the bedsits. It is a mess that the Government has created and it is getting bigger by the day. People are being threatened. Since the eviction ban was lifted last April, almost 6,000 people have received notices to quit. There has been a flood. We told the Government that would happen. That is why we voted against the Government's measures. We did not want to throw people out on the road.

Certainly, we have to have a balance. We do not have a balance. There is a 52% tax on homeowners, as I call them, not landlords. I am not talking about the big landlords who own hundreds of units. I am talking about the ordinary people who have houses they might let, as Deputy Danny Healy-Rae said, but they will not because of the 52% tax and because the RTB and other agencies are siding with the tenants all the time. They should be out there sourcing and doing deals, as Deputy Healy-Rae said, and getting more vacant houses for people that can be turned around. As I understand it, in Northern Ireland the local authority has 12 weeks to re-let the house after the tenant hands in the keys. What is wrong here? Sure the canteen here has been closed since July and we cannot even get it open to feed the staff and the Members here. We cannot even do that much in this House, so how are we going to build houses? The people have lost faith in the Government completely because it has failed. The Government brought in the new building energy regulation certificate and all these separate regulations, and it put up the price of concrete. Everyone knows that the Government obviously does not want to build the houses, because of the actions it is taking. The decision to put up the price of concrete was a daft one to take in the middle of a housing crisis. The Government has lost its way. It is in a cul-de-sac and it needs to open its eyes and listen to the people.

Deputy Thomas Pringle

I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on today’s motion regarding the suspension of the scrutiny requirement for the Eviction Ban Bill 2022. I thank People Before Profit-Solidarity for bringing this motion forward. I absolutely support this motion and the Bill on which it is based. It is essential that we accelerate the passage of the Eviction Ban Bill so that tenants are given proper long-term tenure security, particularly going into this winter. This Bill was passed in February, yet the Government continues to drag its heels in its attempt to stall it. I was completely against the lifting of the eviction ban in April, but with the continuous rise in homelessness numbers and the winter looming it is a particularly important time to reinstate the ban.

There is a severe lack of rentals available across the country, and particularly in rural areas. There were only 37 properties available to rent in the entire county of Donegal this morning. Of these, none are affordable for those on HAP. The reality is that households facing eviction are most likely facing homelessness. As chairman on the board of North West Simon Community, I have seen the pressure that voluntary homeless organisations are currently facing. The number of homeless people in the region is increasing significantly every year. Last year, 539 people sought support from the North West Simon Community, including 292 adults and 244 children, with 15% of the referrals coming from Donegal County Council. The organisation provided social housing to 23 households in Donegal and Leitrim and assisted 239 households in relation to homelessness or the risk of homelessness. Figures for July 2023 alone show that emergency accommodation was provided to 155 people. This is truly disgraceful. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage's Housing for All strategy has completely failed. Since he published the strategy in September 2021, homelessness in the north west region has not only increased, but has increased by a massive 80.2%. That increase of over 80% is the Government’s legacy. It will continue to be its legacy unless drastic measures are introduced in the budget in two weeks' time.

Homeless organisations are severely underfunded. Given that the Government has failed to protect its citizens from homelessness, the very least it can do is sufficiently fund the organisations that provide for them. The homeless action plan for the north-west region stated that "it was widely felt that services were overstretched and under-funded by Section 10 Homeless funding". I raised this issue this very month last year. I warned the then Tánaiste, now Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, that essential homeless services in the north west are in danger of closing. I have also warned the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, of this in multiple emails and at a meeting with his officials to which he failed to show up, despite representatives travelling from the north west for an arranged meeting with him to outline the dangerous position they were in regarding funding.

We cannot afford for any homeless service to be under threat of closing in the midst of one of the worst homeless crises ever to face the country and while homeless numbers continue to soar at the rate at which they are going. I urge the Government to commit sufficient funding to homeless services in the north west in the upcoming budget, and to engage with the services to properly target homelessness, those at risk of homelessness and hidden homelessness, which is particularly present in rural communities. We cannot be in the position next year where 244 children in the north west face homelessness again. Even more frightening is the thought of these families facing homelessness without the support of organisations that are there to help them. One thing that is for certain is that the county councils and the Government are not willing to help them. If we are serious about tackling homelessness, we need to provide households with the support they need during this crisis, which includes passing People Before Profit-Solidarity's Eviction Ban Bill. The reality is that they need a secure roof over their heads in the first instance. Reducing the number of families facing homelessness in the first place should be our priority and that of the Government. Unfortunately, it is not. That is the reality of the situation. The Government's priority is providing money for private landlords and private developers. That is the only thing it is actually willing to do.

Deputy Joan Collins

I, too, am supporting the Private Members' motion regarding the suspension of the scrutiny requirement for the Eviction Ban Bill 2022 put forward by People Before Profit-Solidarity. For months now, Members of the Government have stood up in this House and have said the eviction ban did not work. We see the results now. We see more people facing eviction and more people homeless. I would like to see the Minister of State tell a family with a notice to quit that the eviction ban did not work, because the Government has taken away the last protection they had left. The reality is that the Government buried this Bill, like it buried thousands of people by lifting the eviction ban. This has become a common tactic of this Government. It buries a Bill on Committee Stage so it does not have to face the consequences of holding a vote and showing its true colours. It buried the Thirty-fifth Amendment of the Constitution (Water in Public Ownership) (No. 2) Bill 2016 that I introduced. The Government promised its own wording on a referendum to take place in November that we have seen neither sight nor sound of. It is the same with the referendum on the right to housing and the Debenhams Bill. Now, the Government is burying this Bill and letting down thousands upon thousands of renters in this country.

I, and many of my colleagues in this House, stood up here six months ago and told the Government what would happen when the eviction ban was lifted. Homelessness is up by over 1,000 and notices to quit are up 21%. That is the consequence of this Government's failure to protect renters. There are 3,873 children in emergency accommodation, up 44% since this Government took office. That is just the official figure. We know it does not include those who are not in emergency accommodation but are in hidden homelessness. That is shocking, and it is a direct result of this Government's policies and choices to legislate for the good of the big vulture funds, developers, landlords and not ordinary people, like the young woman who contacted me. She has been in emergency accommodation in Gardiner Street since May. She has a one-and-a-half-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old daughter.

There are no cooking facilities in that emergency accommodation. She cannot cook proper food for her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter. Imagine the impact that will have on her children over the next period. They are the people facing the stresses and strains of homelessness. The Government has never taken this housing crisis really seriously, treated it as an emergency and done what needs to be done.

There was underexpenditure of €1 billion in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage from 2020 to 2022. In 2022, the Government missed its affordable-purchase and cost-rental home target by 70%. This year, it has removed the ban on no-fault evictions as it writes policies to grow the rental market. Across the developed world, a long-term ban on no-fault evictions is a litmus test for a stable rental sector. Instead of having one, the Government gives us insecure tenancies, build-to-rent regulations that lead to tenement-like circumstances, and free rein for speculators to sit on empty apartments to make a profit. Now it is floating a tax relief for landlords in the budget, not using the tax system to encourage longer-term or more secure tenancies like Threshold has suggested. It wants to give away money from our public services to landlords so it does not have to face the disaster it has created in the rental market. It should get the Bill back into the committee and get it passed. It should provide renters with a no-fault eviction ban, as is standard across Europe, and keep people in their rented accommodation until public housing, cost-rental housing and affordable housing are built. At a bare minimum, it should bring the Bill back, vote on it and show the public what it really stands for. At a minimum, it should be considering the immediate introduction of a winter eviction ban.

Deputy Violet-Anne Wynne

I commend the People Before Profit–Solidarity group on introducing this motion and, indeed, the Bill with which it is associated. In the second quarter of this year, the RTB reported that 5,735 notices to quit were issued by landlords. Seventy-one of these were issued in my constituency, Clare. I dealt with many of the people involved myself.

As the Minister of State, Deputy Malcolm Noonan, knows, nine out of ten evictions in this country are landlord led. Up to the end of the last moratorium, seven out of ten were no-fault evictions. I would imagine that number has now increased in view of the fact that, of the total, 3,633 landlords evicted their tenants to sell the property. This Government’s policy was first to depend solely on the private rental sector and it has now decimated that sector because it made the eviction-ban period far too short. I support the motion and the associated Bill because, at the very least, it will leave people with a roof over their heads. That should be a priority for the Government. There has been one tenant in situ property in Clare – just one – and more than 70 local authority houses lie vacant.

I want to do one thing today, that is, debunk the Government narrative. The putting in place of the eviction ban did not cause high levels of homelessness. I refute that claim. No one ever said it would stop people entering homelessness. It was supposed to do two things, the first being to stop people entering emergency accommodation during the bleakest time of the year, the winter months, bearing in mind that we often do not get to focus on the trauma of entering and living in emergency accommodation, including in the longer term. The second, importantly, was to buy time, giving the Government time to put in place extra capacity by way of modular homes, family hubs and emergency capacity, as done during the Covid pandemic. It is interesting that we had to wait for another emergency to come along before homelessness was declared an emergency. The Government did not provide the emergency accommodation, and that is why the eviction moratorium is now needed again.

Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Deputy Malcolm Noonan)

Again, I thank all the Deputies for their contributions to this motion. Before I make my closing speech, I will address some of the points made by them.

Deputy Bacik raised the issue of the Bill’s delay, as did several others. My colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy O’Donnell, might already have stated that the consideration of this matter is more appropriate for the Business Committee. The evidence base and meaningful contingency are issues that I will address in my closing comments.

I welcome the comment of Deputy Cian O’Callaghan that landlords are, in the main, concerned about the welfare of their tenants. That is generally the case. The Government, including the Minister, is listening to the landlords regarding the review of the rental sector. I disagree with the Deputy’s assertion that there is a lack of humanity in the Government regarding this. It is not the case. We are dealing with the matter with the urgency it requires from a humanitarian point of view.

Deputy Tóibín raised the issue of vacant local authority houses. There has been significant additional funding and staffing for local authorities to address voids, and a significant impact has been made in this regard. There is a very different set of circumstances regarding the energy requirements and building standards that have rightly been introduced. It takes considerable time to bring the houses around to a high level of thermal efficiency. That is important too.

Let me address issues raised by Deputies Michael Healy-Rae, Danny Healy-Rae and Micheal Collins on rural guidelines. They are due out very shortly. On Deputy Mattie McGrath’s remarks, we can be blamed for many things but we certainly cannot be blamed for renovations taking place here in Leinster House.

Deputy Pringle raised the failure of Housing for All. We certainly do not agree with that. Housing for All is delivering, and we are all in agreement here that supply is critical to addressing the crisis we are in.

On Deputy Joan Collins’s remarks, my understanding is that the wording of the referendum on the right to housing is still being formulated. I hope it will be due shortly.

I thank all the Deputies for their contributions to this important debate. I reassure them that every single decision the Government makes is fully and carefully considered. This is particularly the case on the housing front, where we know the challenge is immense, particularly for renters. We know that behind the homelessness statistics, real people and families are suffering, but we also know that the Government has a duty to make decisions in the public interest and that it continues to face tough decisions on the housing front. No one in government underestimates the scale of the housing challenge. We must ensure that we supply as much as possible, especially in the rental sector, where the number of properties has decreased. That is why we stuck to our original decision on the phased lifting of the eviction ban by 18 June. An eviction ban would have a significant impact by way of deterring the medium- and longer-term supply of rental accommodation, with knock-on negative impacts on rent levels. It would act as a disincentive to landlords who are considering entering the rental market and as a spur for existing landlords to leave. We need a supply of homes for all types of tenure in every place and a wide-reaching plan to reform practically every aspect of our housing system. Housing for All is that plan, and despite the challenges we face, we can see that it is bearing fruit.

Regarding the motion debated today and the continuing calls for an eviction ban, the Government is clear and at one in the considered view that such a measure would be harmful to growing the supply of private rental accommodation into the medium and longer term and safeguarding in the short term. This position has not changed since March. The alternative, and the correct course of action, has been focused on additional measures announced last March to increase the supply of homes in three ways, namely, by scrapping the development levies for a time-limited period, providing a saving of up to €12,650 on average per home, thus creating an added incentive to build; by substantially increasing the grants available for the renovation of vacant and derelict properties and extending those to rental properties as well as owner-occupied properties; and by investing up to €750 million in the delivery of more than 4,000 cost-rental homes under the new secure tenancy affordable rental, STAR, investment scheme, applications for which have already been made and are being assessed. The Government-supported cost-rental homes will offer eligible and affordable housing to applicants – secure tenancies in high-demand urban areas at a rent of at least 25% below market rent. Taken together, these measures accelerate supply, particularly of affordable rental properties, while addressing vacancy and encouraging the more efficient use of existing building stock for housing purposes.

The Government’s Housing for All plan is having a genuine impact on increasing housing supply. More homes are being built and bought now than in a generation. Last year, we saw the greatest number of homes delivered since 2008, and new developments are coming on stream. The latest monthly data on the number of commencement notices for residential construction starts show commencement notices for 2,770 new homes were received by the building control authorities in August 2023. That is an increase of 30.6% on the number of new homes commenced in the same month last year. The strong uptake in commencements this year has continued, and 21,316 homes have been commenced in the first eight months of 2023. This is a 14% increase on the figure for the same period last year and a record by comparison with similar periods since data series began, in 2015. We have made a very positive start in 2023. The latest CSO figures show that 7,353 new homes were added to the national housing stock in quarter 2 of 2023. This is a 6% increase on the number of new homes completed in quarter 1 of 2023.

In addition, a record 14,017 homes were completed in the first six months of 2023, which is an increase of 5.8% on the same period in 2022. Rolling 12 month completions to the end of June remain above 30,000 and we are optimistic that we are on course to meet the overall target for new homes in 2023. The Government is making record State investment available for housing, with €4.5 billion in State funding committed in 2023.

On 7 March 2023, the Government announced a range of mitigation measures to deal with the phased lifting of the winter eviction ban during the period 31 March to 18 June 2023. One of these measures was to develop a legislative first right of refusal proposal which would require landlords who are selling a property to first offer it to the tenant for purchase. Detailed and complex work has been ongoing in conjunction with the Office of the Attorney General to progress the implementation of the Government decision.

The Government is conscious at all times when bringing forward such legislation of the need to avoid unintended consequences insofar as possible. For example, it is not intended to unnecessarily impede or complicate the sales process for rental accommodation, nor to cause delays in the conveyancing process. The Government is also required to ensure when formatting legislation that it can withstand legal challenge. These matters, among others, are being considered in detail by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Office of the Attorney General.

We are exploring every opportunity to add supply to the rental sector and overall housing system. The Department has commenced a comprehensive review of the private rental sector to take account of significant regulatory changes in recent years. The review has been finalised and will ensure that our housing system provides an efficient, affordable, safe and secure framework for landlords and tenants. In addition to increasing supply in the rental market, nothing is off the table.

On 7 December 2022, the Government approved the priority drafting and publication of the general scheme of the registration of short-term tourist letting Bill. The new regulatory controls will require short-term holiday lets to be registered with Fáilte Ireland and ensure that only accommodation providers with planning permission, where it is required, can advertise their properties for short-term letting. This legislation is being led by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media and it is anticipated that the new regulatory controls will be in place in early 2024.

The Government has implemented and will continue to implement measures to promote equity, fairness and security of tenure in the private rental sector. The Government relies on the private rental sector to provide much-needed housing generally, as well as housing through which social housing needs can be met. Any actions that directly or inadvertently undermine the economic viability of rental accommodation provision could negatively impact on existing and future supply of rental accommodation and the wider economy and damage future capacity and attractiveness for both landlords and tenants. The Housing for All plan is working. The Government is making progress. The new-dwelling completions, commencements, permissions, home purchases and numbers of first-time buyers and mortgage drawdowns are all increasing.

In conclusion, I emphasise that the programme for Government recognises the important role the private rental sector plays in housing people and will continue to do so. The Government will address the challenges in the sector, including standards, security and affordability for renters. There has been clear progress. We have extremely solid foundations on which to build for the future. Reforms we introduced have taken time because they are comprehensive and far-reaching. Housing delivery envisaged under Housing for All is focused on taking short, medium and long-term actions and the Government is working to deliver on its comprehensive and detailed plan of action. Local and central Government are focused on the delivery of housing for people and oppose the introduction of an eviction ban. Accordingly the Government opposes this motion.

Deputy Bríd Smith

I would not mind getting a copy of the Minister of State's speech to compare it with that of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell. I think they are the same bla, bla, bla as Greta Thunberg famously said about how we deal with the climate crisis.

We are no strangers to having to use Private Members' time to pursue Bills that just sit and wait and have nothing done with them. The same happened to a climate emergency measures Bill which was passed by the Oireachtas. We had to use Private Members' time to insist it move through Committee Stage. With the support of the Minister of State's party that was in opposition at the time, we got it passed and then it was obstructed further by using some other vague Standing Order which we ended up contesting in the High Court. We are used to having to challenge this House on its implementation, or lack of, of democracy and we do so today with a huge level of sincerity.

I will talk about the responses of both Ministers of State, Deputies Noonan and O'Donnell. I have a copy of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell's speech and I have just gone through it again. I have noted that five or six times he used the idea of balance between landlords and tenants as an argument for why the Government will not support this Bill. The Government has utterly failed - all political commentators make this point - to prove the correlation between the eviction ban and landlords exiting the market. The Government says it exists but has not proved it.

Earlier the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, spoke about protecting renters while trying to keep small landlords. He talked about retaining small landlords while increasing housing stock, protecting renters while trying to keep small landlords in the system and stated the system "can provide an efficient, viable, affordable, safe and secure framework for both landlords and tenants". The Government has failed. If it had not, we would not be debating this motion. If the housing figures were not escalating because of the lifting of the eviction ban we would not be making this argument today.

The record of Fine Gael in government was alluded to earlier by Deputy Ó Broin. He is quite right. I looked back on the record and it stuck in my head that in 2016 the then Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Coveney, promised to end homelessness. On the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising, he made a big deal of it. He said that he would be crazy to promise a solution to the use of hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation for emergency accommodation for families by mid-2017 but he said that he was going to make it happen. He even gave a comment to a media outlet that he would bet his career on his promise to end homelessness. My God, they would say mass in this place. If they say anything, they will say anything at all to try to prove themselves right. If he was an honest elected representative, he would not be Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. He would have resigned, because he utterly failed to hold to a promise he repeated in 2016. In 2016, 6,906 people were homeless and the number has more than doubled seven years later. That is the Government's record. I repeat what I have said many times. Shame on the Green Party for backing up the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael coalition in the implementation of their response to the housing and homelessness crisis which is the main crisis that dominates people's lives.

I will comment on the reference to domestic and gender-based violence and refuge spaces. Tonight we will discuss the Bill to set up an agency for domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. We currently have 181 refuge spaces for people suffering from gender-based violence in relationships. The Istanbul Convention, which we have signed, recommends 472 spaces. What a gap. What is the promise? The promise is that by the end of 2024 we will have another 24 spaces. Many counties do not have any spaces at all and the truth is that many people continue to live with their abusers because they cannot go into homeless accommodation and put their children into hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation for years on end. I know many families who have been in homeless accommodation for two and three years.

I repeat that I would like a copy of the Minister of State's speech, but it is more bla, bla, bla and it is the same bla, bla, bla I heard from the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, earlier. It is shameful that the Deputies who did not turn up for the debate today will all turn up tonight to vote the way they have been told to vote, which is to oppose this motion to move forward with an eviction ban to do what it is supposed to do, not to strike a balance between landlords and tenants, but to protect vulnerable families, particularly children, from ending up in disgraceful conditions for years on end while there is a housing and homelessness crisis that consecutive Governments have failed to deal with.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

By indicating the Government intends to vote against our motion seeking to reinstate the eviction ban for no-fault evictions, the Government - Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party - has essentially said it is okay that thousands more, including families, individuals and children, will end up homeless and in emergency accommodation with all the trauma and suffering that involves. It is particularly disgusting and shameful when it comes to children.

The Government is doing that to children, saying it will allow that to happen on top of already record numbers of people suffering that trauma, 4,000 of whom are children, and indicating to others, more than 5,000 of whom in just the past three months have got notices to quit, and thousands of whom are children, that they will end up homeless and that the Government will not stop that. That is what the Government is saying, no matter which way you cut it: "We will allow that to happen." Shame on the Government.

The only answer to this is for the hundreds of thousands of people who are vulnerable to ending up homeless now, the renters and all those who are caught up in some way or another with this housing crisis, with unaffordable rents, unaffordable house prices, mortgage interest hikes, you name it, to get out on the streets before this budget on the cost-of-living protest. The protest will be centrally about this disastrous situation, the worst end of which is people being driven into homelessness, but there are also tens of thousands of others couch surfing or living in overcrowded conditions, with two or three generations living in the one home, and some people actually sleeping on the streets. The Government says it will allow this to happen because the landlords might be a bit upset and because we need a balance as regards the right of landlords to charge astronomical rents. People faced with a notice to quit are suffering hopelessness.

In my area yesterday 16 properties were available on Daft: there was one one-bedroom property available for €2,217 per month, a two-bed property for €2,658, a three-bed property for €2,883 and a four-bed property for - wait until you hear this - €6,229. What does that mean if you are a family working on a low or average income? You are absolutely screwed. You are going out contacting hundreds of people and it is a waste of time. You do not even get replies. The Government could resolve this to everybody's satisfaction if it were to simply say it will not let people be made homeless, that if the landlord has to sell then the Government will buy the property, but that the landlord will not be allowed to refuse to sell the property if the family would end up homeless.

This in my hand is a letter relating to one person and her child now facing an eviction in Stillorgan. The woman was told in May of this year that sale had been agreed on a tenant in situ purchase, and now she has received a letter a few months later stating, "Sorry, we have decided to pull out of it." There is no explanation. The landlord wants to sell to keep the tenant in situ. Obviously, the tenant and the family want to stay in situ. There is no explanation. "Sorry, we are not proceeding with it." Only a fraction of the expressions of interest for the tenant in situ scheme - in our area, certainly - are actually happening.

It is very simple. The Government has the power to stop people ending up in homelessness and to work with the people who are in the shameful situation of being homeless and to get them out of it. It is choosing not to do so, however, because it is listening to property owners, landlords or whatever you want to call them who are making money out of others' housing misery. Shame on the Government.

Question put.

Deputy Bríd Smith

Vótáil.

An Ceann Comhairle

The vótáil is deferred until the voting time this evening.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 27 Sep 2023

Eviction Ban Bill 2022: Motion

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 27 Sep 2023