Residential Tenancies and Valuation Bill 2020: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2020-07-31
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Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

Regardless of whether or the Minister of State will accept the amendments, some of them will be put to a vote because they should be. However, it is disingenuous to suggest that it is simply the decision of this House because the schedule of the Oireachtas is set by the Government and the Government has chosen that the Dáil rose before the Seanad debated this legislation. This is a very important aspect. I urge the Minister of State to feed information back to his fellow Ministers. There are potentially 11 Stages to each item of legislation. There are five Stages in each House and then there is the Stage whereby if changes are made, the relevant Bill goes back to the initiating House. That needs to be planned for in legislation. If we are brought legislation in a situation whereby if we amended it, there is no Dáil to respond to our changes, that is appropriate or proper respect for due process. This issue must be addressed.
I know that we are keen to move on to section 4 in which there are fundamental issues we must address but before we do, I will say that there are unforeseen consequences in section 3. We have seen examples of unforeseen consequences when legislation is rushed. That is why it is unfortunate that the Minister of State is not leaving himself the opportunity to respond to an issue if one is identified. I would like the Minister of State to indicate whether there will be new residential tenancies legislation coming through in the autumn. Will there be an opportunity for us to engage on the substantial issues that are being raised here and on which we have been told we cannot engage because this is emergency legislation? When will we have the opportunity for an holistic discussion and real thinking about doing housing in a different way? That is what people on all sides of the House have been calling for.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2020-07-31/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2020-07-31