Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 6 October 2020
31. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if the ban on evictions will be reinstated in view of the reinstatement of Covid-19 restrictions and the increase in cases. [28327/20]
View answerWe have a frightening second wave of coronavirus. The country is moving to level 3 tonight and I believe it is only a matter of time before we move to level 4 and then level 5. The Government took the decision to lift the evictions ban and a wave of evictions has restarted. In my constituency, I could give many examples. Does the Minister not agree that now is the time to reinstate the evictions ban to prevent people being made homeless at a time of coronavirus and of restrictions?
I thank the Deputy for the question. The Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Covid-19) Act 2020 provided a temporary moratorium on tenancy terminations, other than in exceptional or limited cases, and on all increases in rent during the period from 27 March to 1 August 2020. The emergency measures aimed to assist in restricting the movement of people to suppress the spread of Covid-19 and applied to all tenants irrespective of their financial circumstances. The Residential Tenancies and Valuation Act 2020 targets enhanced protections to the most vulnerable tenants until 10 January 2021 and respects the constitutionally protected property rights of landlords. As we learned to live with Covid-19 these provisions enabled the residential rental sector to resume activity in as near normal a manner as possible.
With effect from 1 August 2020, the Residential Tenancies and Valuation Act 2020 introduced protections for those tenants who are facing rent arrears and, as a result, are at risk of losing their tenancy. If a tenant's ability to pay has been impacted by Covid-19 and the tenant meets specific criteria new procedures and protections apply by way of a very simple self-declaration. Tenants who follow these procedures cannot be required to vacate their rental accommodation before 11 January 2021 and are not required to pay any rent increase in respect of the period ending 10 January 2021.
These protections are having a significant effect on the level of tenancy termination. Of the 844 notices of arrears issued since the protections were enacted on 1 August, less than one in four has led to a notice of termination actually being issued. One in five tenants have availed of the protections available under the Act and their tenancies cannot be terminated until 11 January next year. The remaining 487 tenancies have not yet received any notice of termination. As the pandemic may or may not become more prevalent within society, I and the Government will keep a very close eye on the situation and bring forward any additional protections that are required at that time.
The Minister is trying to tell us black is white. He lifted the eviction ban. The consequences are beginning to come through now and all the spin in the world will not change that reality. The second Act of 2020 that the Minister brought in is extremely limited and only relates to situations involving arrears, inability to pay and so on.
I will give a concrete example that shows how landlords will continue to get around this. A woman, let us call her Jane, who lives in Knocklyon was subject to an eviction attempt by her landlord. She is a taxi driver and she lost her income as such. The Government then cut her pandemic unemployment payment, PUP. She then fell behind in her rent and so established rent arrears. Her landlord then attempted to evict her but he was smart enough not to say he was evicting her because of rent arrears due to Covid. Instead, all of a sudden a relative wants to move home. She does not get protection under the Minister's legislation and there are more and more situations like that. The chair of Threshold has warned that, unless action is taken, we face a homeless crisis worse than anything we have seen to date.
The facts simply do not bear that out. The Deputy voted against these protections in July this year that we brought forward to put protections on tenancies. These were not just temporary protections relating to the pandemic but also in relation to dealing with rent arrears, the extension of the rent arrears notice, the fact that if a landlord issues a rent arrears notice, it has to go to the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, and the fact that the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, MABS, is now linked into the process to assist tenants at the very beginning of any arrears that happen. The Deputy voted against those measures and others on the hard left did likewise. This wave of evictions the Deputy refers to is not happening and the figures do not bear that out.
I have said to the Deputy already that, should there be an escalation of the pandemic in this country, I as Minister with responsibility for housing will be watching that very closely and will not be found wanting in bringing forward further protections should they be needed.
I have another two cases in Tallaght of people who have notices to quit from their landlords. In this case, the excuse the landlord is going for is that they are selling the property. I do not necessarily believe that they are selling the property. I have seen this many times in the past. There are definite holes in the Minister's legislation, which is why we favour a reintroduction of the full evictions ban. We are bringing forward legislation to do precisely that. We know that a ban on evictions works. We have the proof from earlier this year when the ban saw the number of homeless families drop by 1,500. The number of homeless children fell by over one quarter in the six months that the ban was in place. That is why the ban was introduced in the first place, it is why the ban is needed now and it is why all of the major housing and homeless groups are calling for it. What the Minister has provided is not a ban on evictions. It is just another mechanism that landlords can walk around to get away from. What we need is the complete ban on evictions that we had previously in place. We need it right now.
If the Deputy has any information or facts around landlords who are trying to circumvent regulations, he should bring it to the attention of the RTB. Since the RTB was empowered to initiate sanctions against landlords, it has processed information in relation to 704 tenancies and this has led to commencing investigations on nearly 200. That is what needs to happen. That is why we need to beef up the RTB as well, not just giving it the additional powers but the additional resources it needs to carry out its work and we are doing that.
The premise of the Deputy's argument that we have had a wave of evictions or homelessness since this legislation came in is just not true. Homeless numbers have continued to drop. I want to see them drop further but that is the fact of it. They are the facts and the numbers and behind all of those numbers are people. There will always be individual cases and that is why we need the RTB and others to be tooled up to assist. That is why I have MABS involved now at a very early stage in the legislation that this Government brought forward and that the Deputy opposed in July.
