I welcome Austin Appelbee and his family. Austin, you inspired us all with your immense courage. Well done. In March, reports emerged of mass evictions across the country as a result of the new Fianna Fáil rent law. When I raised this with the Taoiseach at the time he told me that the facts did not bear out any connection. However, the latest figures from the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, confirm exactly what we previously warned him about. The botched so-called rental reforms have indeed triggered what has now become a wave of evictions. In the first three months of this year alone, more than 7,000 eviction notices were issued, which is a 50% increase from last year. These figures should not come as a shock. They are the inevitable consequence of the Government's policies. It gave private landlords a year's notice that they could jack up rents, but only if they got rid of existing tenants before the end of March. Families and children are suffering as a result. Threshold has supported more than 10,000 households in the first three months of this year alone. That is 3% of all households in the private rented sector in just 12 weeks. Behind every notice to quit is a person or family living in utter fear. Out in Galway and Dublin over recent weeks I have met renters in tears as they wonder where they will go next, like the family I met in Cabra of two parents, both working, and two teenage children. They have spent the past 18 months in cramped conditions in a homeless hub because they simply cannot find anywhere to rent or buy. I have spoken before about our Labour representatives' experience of meeting renters contemplating suicide because their situation is so utterly desperate. People need hope and they need Government action to resolve the housing crisis. What action has the Government taken? It rushed deeply flawed legislation through, guillotined the debate, ignored multiple amendments from Labour's Deputy Conor Sheehan and other Opposition parties and the Taoiseach literally scoffed at us in the Chamber when we warned this measure was effectively an incentive to evict and an amnesty on rent hikes. The Tánaiste even told me the measure, in his words, actually "protects renters"? However, what kind of protections are these for renters who have already endured more than a decade of failure from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, where rents have more than doubled in ten years? This is before the full impact of the Government's market reset and rent hikes to come. The Taoiseach said last weekend that the defining challenge of our time is to give hope to young people that they can find an affordable home, but his policies are leading to thousands of young people being evicted from their homes. He has achieved the highest level of evictions since the Famine, the highest level of child homelessness ever and he has nothing to offer renters. Unlike him, we have put forward constructive proposals. We have published legislation for an emergency three-year eviction ban. Will the Taoiseach support Labour's Bill and will he intervene to stop the tsunami of evictions and keep children out of homelessness?
Sentiment score: -0.01
The Taoiseach cannot have it both ways.
Sentiment score: 0.00
With respect, what I have heard from the Taoiseach just now is Alice in Wonderland logic or Micheál in Wonderland logic. The Taoiseach is telling me the Government has introduced protections for renters and that these have, somehow, generated evictions, so which is it? He made claims about construction figures that he needs to go back and look at again. He used the word “churn”. That is deeply hurtful to those families, like the family I described, like the family I met in Oranmore, and like families we are all meeting all the time. I hear that the Taoiseach is telling members of his own parliamentary party that there is a wonderful response on the doors in the by-election, but he must know this is not the case. That is more Alice in Wonderland thinking. All across the country, all of us who are constituency TDs are hearing from people who are desperately hurt, who are in fear and who are getting notices to quit and have nowhere to go. The figures speak for themselves and the stories behind the figures speak for themselves, no matter how much the Taoiseach tries to spin it and no matter how much he lectures me about "churn" in this House. He said it in March. He is saying it again now.
Sentiment score: 0.00
It is not the case for people living the reality-----
Sentiment score: 0.00
No.
Sentiment score: -0.30