Residential Tenancies and Valuation Bill 2020: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2020-07-31
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Lynn Boylan (SF), Agricultural Panel

What Senator Higgins is saying is important and needs to be elaborated upon. Senator Ward is right in that if this goes to the courts, it will more than likely be thrown out or it will never make it to the courts in the first instance. He would say that as a middle-class white man. He views the law in a completely different way to someone who is a Traveller, an uneducated individual or, perhaps, a member of the Roma community. It is very different when a landlord says to a person to be very careful about filling in the declaration because that individual could be prosecuted because he or she knows that the law does not treat him or her the same. We are trying to be constructive. I am sorry if the Minister of State is frustrated and that this is the Friday of a bank holiday weekend. He wanted to rush this Bill through, however. We are trying to protect the most vulnerable in society. By not accepting the amendments or taking on board the constructive advice that we are giving, he is putting vulnerable tenants at risk. I know that landlords abuse their position because there is a power imbalance in our society. The provision will be abused.

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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