Residential Tenancies and Valuation Bill 2020: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2020-07-31
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Lynn Ruane (IND), University of Dublin

I move amendment No. 22:
In page 8, between lines 7 and 8, to insert the following:
“(a) by the insertion of the following paragraph after paragraph (b):
“(c) notwithstanding paragraphs (a) and (b), on the grounds specified in paragraph 3 or 4 in the Table to this section, only if the emergency period specified in section 3 of the Residential Tenancies and Valuation Act 2020 has expired.”,”.
The amendment would insert a provision into the 2004 Act to make it clear that landlords would not be able to evict a tenant on the grounds that they were selling the property or that they needed it for their own use for the duration of the Covid-19 emergency period. I have also co-sponsored the Labour Party amendments to this section which are tabled in the same spirit. My amendment is tabled on foot of advice from the Simon Communities which contacted all Senators this week to express its concerns about the various inadequacies contained in the Bill.
The briefing indicates the Bill does not protect those tenants who could be made homeless because the landlord requires the property for his or her own use or wishes to sell the property. It argues these clauses in the legislation have been a driver of homelessness over the period of the housing and homelessness crisis and the Dublin Simon Community is concerned that the removal of that protection without the development of comprehensive prevention supports would lead to an increase in the number of individuals and families having to present to homeless services.
The pandemic is not over, the emergency has not finished and the measures we introduced in the initial stages of the crisis have not outlived their usefulness, and they likely never will. The Minister of State has come before us today with extremely narrow proposals to provide very weak protections for certain tenants being evicted where they are not able to pay rent due to Covid-19. The Government is doing nothing for tenants being evicted under other legal grounds in the residential tenancies legislation and withdrawing all legal protections from them, essentially throwing them back to a chaotic private rental market operating in the midst of a pandemic. This amendment would, at least, provide a measure of respite by banning evictions on the more landlord-friendly grounds until the emergency period has expired. The Government, in its legislation, sees this as ending in January 2021.
I urge the Minister to accept the amendment so that we do not see important legal protection for tenants evaporate with the enactment of this Bill next week.

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Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2020-07-31