Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages Dail Éireann — 2026-02-11 ============================================================ Thomas Gould (SF), Cork North-Central I support this amendment. I had a gentleman come to me a few weeks ago. He is a paramedic working in the ambulance service and he was homeless. He went through a relationship break-up. He could find nowhere to rent. He has a good job and is working. The only service he could be offered in Cork was Simon Community Night Light. You go in at 11 o'clock at night and leave at 8 o'clock in the morning. He was going to work at 4 o'clock. He was in the ambulance service. He was not sure what time he would be home at. He could not go to work for a few days because the only place he could lie down was in the Night Light. How is it possible? I had another guy in a similar situation. Where he was renting, the landlord, a small landlord, was selling the property. He was a security worker. He did door staff and worked in bars, nightclubs and fast food restaurants late at night. The doors close at half past 11, so he is sleeping in his car. Then if you are not engaging with the emergency accommodation, you are not classified as homeless. It is a catch-22. Because you cannot get in somewhere to put down your head, you are not homeless. How is that right? I spoke to a girl a while ago who is in accommodation and she and the other people in there believe the accommodation is not fit for inhabitants. It is homelessness services. She believes HIQA, or someone like HIQA, should be brought in to audit these properties. Where is their dignity? She is there with a young child. She has been in there for over a year. I know people who have done three years, three Christmases in emergency accommodation, people with children - Santa Claus. Some people might not get this but in Cork, and I am sure nationally now, we see a drop in homelessness by a small bit in December. I know some of the people. If they have kids, they try to go home or get into a friend's house so that their children can have Santa Claus. In January, they have to go back into the emergency accommodation. I am dealing with a man whose partner died tragically by suicide last summer. She was on the verge of a home being bought by the tenant in situ scheme and tragically she died. He now is trying to raise their three-year-old son. He contacted me over Christmas. I had to go up to him because he was so upset. I was seriously worried for him. Cork City Council knew his ex-partner. She was a lovely lady, a vibrant young woman. The weight of homelessness, the weight of not being able to provide a roof for your child, the weight of always being short of money and I suppose a thousand other things, because when you are in such a desperate situation - everything then combines on you. I was talking to that man. He works in the building line, he is in sport, hurling, mixed martial arts. He is a man's man, you would say. He cried to me on Christmas week because he had nowhere for his three-year-old child, his young son, and himself to go to. Jesus, this is what we are dealing with. The Ministers say this Bill will improve things. I do not believe it will. When will it improve things? We have seen an increase in evictions since the Government announced it was bringing in this Bill on 1 March. I am not sure the Government gets it. People now have notices to quit and that is an eviction notice. "Notice to quit" is the nice way of putting it. It is an eviction notice. They are not all going to hit on 1 March. They are going to hit in April, May, June, July - right up the whole summer. We will see a steady increase in the number of people becoming homeless. These will be more and more families. Even if you have a job, there is no security that you will be able to find somewhere to rent. I hold clinics on Mondays and I am now so busy that I am booking people two weeks in advance to see me. A couple came in to me last Monday. They told me that last year, their property was to be bought through the tenant in situ scheme. Happy days. Then the Government pulled it last April. I have the document that says that on 4 April last year, the Government pulled the scheme. Their landlord sold their property. They got €10,000 from the credit union to buy a mobile home to put in the back garden of a friend who lives just outside the city. They have two daughters, 11 and 13 years old. They told me about the shame the father has. He is a man and he is working. His wife is working and they have two kids and they are living in a mobile home. This is because the Government pulled the tenant in situ scheme. Granted, the Government reinstated it afterwards with new rules and regulations, which they would have still qualified for, but the landlord was so sick of waiting around for this Government that he sold the property and they were evicted. I will ask the Minister a straight question, which I asked Cork City Council, namely, who is going to give them a house? They are willing to pay, but as for the tenant in situ scheme, earlier the Minister, Deputy Browne, said he was looking to provide hope. Where is the hope for them? The Government also talks about preventing people going into emergency accommodation and preventing homelessness. The one thing that was working was the tenant in situ scheme and the Government broke it by modifying it. The representatives of the Government come in here and make promises to people. The only promises that this Bill will deliver will be increased rent, increased evictions and increased homelessness. I will finish with this. I swear to God I could talk about this all night because of the people I deal with every week. I do not know what I would do if I was in that position as a father knowing that there was nowhere for my children to go. Jesus Christ, God forgive me for cursing. How could any man or woman cope with that? How many children must become homeless before the Minister and the Government accept their policies are wrong? It is not just that they are wrong and not delivering, the policies are the problem because vested interests, vulture funds, speculators and profit are being put before ordinary, hard-working people who just want to have a safe home. How many children must become homeless? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-11/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-11