Housing and Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-14
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Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

The Minister has provided for it in the Bill. This is a scenario he is setting out. He is making the change. People may have reasons that are reasonable or they may have reasons that are not reasonable, but they are still humans. They may be acting from paranoia, fear or concern, or they may be acting because they have had experience of abuse in the past. There are many reasons for people making decisions. The point is the decision the Minister is making is that those people can be removed from the emergency accommodation where they may have supports that will assist them to get them to a point of better decision-making. Let us bear in mind it is any reasonable offer. This is not the three-shot people have on the social housing list. This is a single offer that is deemed to be reasonable. They are then, instead of being in emergency accommodation, moved into night by night.
What is that serving? Is it only to serve as punishment and removing people from the emergency accommodation numbers? What is the purpose of moving people from an insecure situation into a more insecure situation, particularly when they may be families? We do not need speculation that it probably would not happen. We need the Minister's logic for setting out that pathway for people. Why is he making a provision that would penalise those who do not accept a reasonable offer of accommodation and would send them out of emergency accommodation and into the night-to-night scenario? The Minister may say he does not envisage it happening but he has provided for it to happen and set up a whole new system for it to happen. Clearly, it might happen. That is what the Minister has planned for. Why?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-07-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:15+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-14