Paul Murphy urges housing protections beyond three-month emergency

Deputy Horgan's amendment and move my own amendments 10 and 11 and McBerry's 12. Basically the purpose of the amendments is to extend the reasons upon which the three month now unfortunately period could be extended and to say that an additional reason is to tackle the housing emergency in the state. I have to say I almost felt sorry for the Taoiseach earlier when he was explaining how all these radical measures are being taken now that he earlier told us were entirely unconstitutional, that we couldn't have a rent freeze, that we couldn't have a ban on evictions. And he did so. His argument was grounded in the idea of the public goods, the common goods having to be weighed against private property rights and that given the scale of the emergency that we were able to do, they were able to take such measures. But the point is before the coronavirus crisis hit, a crisis existed for renters in this society, a massive crisis, a crisis existed in terms of homelessness, a crisis existed in terms of soaring, unaffordable rents and that crisis is likely to continue after this three months and the government should be able to extend it on the base of avoiding the housing emergency. Thank you very much. Anybody else offering on this particular matter, Minister? I think, Caroline, I don't intend to take any of those amendments that are being rejected. Just to be clear, the Part 2 of this bill is intended to operate only during the focus period of emergency following a public health emergency. We strongly, and I'll ask people to understand this, we believe we have an opportunity here to give greater protections to tenants for these couple of months linked to the emergency that's there today, the public health emergency. Going beyond that, you jeopardise this legislation and you might not be able to help the people we're trying to help. And that's why I'm asking you, there's lots of other policy discussions you want to have, there's new governments going to come in, those discussions can be had. But for today and tonight, this is about an emergency situation for the next three or four months. I would ask members to look at it through that prism only. The other discussions, we've had them before, we'll have them again and absolutely, they can continue at a later stage. But for tonight, I need people to understand this is to give us the powers. We want to be able to help people for the next three or four months. And beyond that, if need be, based on the public health, but I can't take these amendments at this moment. I just want to make a point that, I mean, the last vote demonstrated that there's a possibility to pass real measures that will make a difference to renters now, in the next half an hour on these things. There's a potential majority to pass these things that will actually make a difference. So I would say it's up to the independent TDs who got votes from ordinary people, lots of renters, to stick to, I'm sure, the kind of promises that they made in the election and to vote for the interests of renters this evening. The second point I'd make is to Fianna Fáil. If these votes were taking place in the last Dáil, Fianna Fáil would be abstaining on all of these things because they'd know safely that Fianna Gael would be able to defeat it. So if Fianna Fáil abstain on any of these measures, they will pass. So I would appeal to Fianna Fáil at the very least, do what you would have done in the last Dáil term. Don't go and very obviously vote for the interests of landlords against renters and block positive changes that we can make tonight in a crisis for people. Again, can I just say to members, I understand that I sense a lot of other policy discussions coming through in this tonight. I understand we all come from different spaces here, but on this situation, for this legislation to work, okay, we need people to support this. And if you try to insert other amendments and other changes that might jeopardise this legislation, it means it might not work. And it might not give the support to the people we all want to support over the next three or four months, which is to keep everybody in their home, in their place of residence. That's what we're trying to achieve here. So there's other policy discussions you want to have way beyond this. And I have to say, it's not the time to do it because you are in danger of jeopardising the legislation we're trying to bring forward here. But just to go through them all, first of all, in relation to travellers and traveller accommodation, we've had a conference call with them, as you know that we've worked with them very closely. There's a specific circle going to all local authorities. There will be no evictions of travellers on unauthorised sites during this period. That is very clear. The LA's are very clear about that on existing unauthorised sites. I can't condone it was new unauthorised sites. That's a different situation. As of today, on any sites, that's not an issue. And LA's are fully involved with that. They've issued an instruction on that as well. And I can't be any clearer than that. And I hope that's enough for the people as well.