This Friday, in the District Court beside the Four Courts, five households - families and individuals - will taste the very bitter fruits of this Government's failure to protect tenants from ruthless vulture funds and against no-fault evictions and to offer them alternatives when they are faced with homelessness, either in terms of social housing or private rental accommodation that they could afford and is within HAP limits. The families and individuals living in St. Helen's Court will face an application by a vulture fund, Mill Street Projects, to evict them into homelessness this Friday. These are decent, ordinary working people who have done absolutely nothing wrong. They have always paid their rent. They are still paying their rent. They have never been guilty of any antisocial behaviour. They had a community, one that has been wrecked. There used to be 20 tenants in it but others have been bullied out by two successive vulture funds. The tenants have been tortured by these vulture funds over four years and now face homelessness. This is because of the Government's refusal to ban no-fault evictions. There is no justification that should allow the law to facilitate a vulture fund, for no other reason than profit, to put people on the street but our law allows it.

There is absolutely no justification for the fact that in the same block there are 12 and now maybe 15 empty apartments beside the apartments from which these tenants are now to be evicted which the landlord claimed at the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, it wanted to rent but, strangely enough, it will not rent to the tenants it is about to evict. Those apartments have been allowed to sit there for two years. I have flagged this again and again. Why are compulsory purchase powers not used to get hold of these empty apartments that could not only prevent people going on the street but could house 12 to 15 other families? What alternatives are available to these tenants?

Under the HAP limits, the individuals in St. Helen's Court can seek a maximum rent of €990 for a one-bedroom apartment. In Dún Laoghaire today, the cheapest one-bedroom apartment is €1,300. The next one is €1,600 and the next one after that is €1,900. The maximum the families can look for is €1,900 for a three-bedroom apartment. The cheapest available in Dún Laoghaire at the moment is €2,400. All of these tenants are goosed and will be forced into homelessness because we have failed to protect not just these tenants but any other tenants faced with this situation.

We are running over time. The Taoiseach is to respond uninterrupted.

About six Bills have already been passed to protect tenants' rights generally. In particular, the Tyrrelstown amendment provides that where a landlord proposes to sell ten or more units in a single development at the same time, that sale is subject to the existing tenants remaining in situ, other than in exceptional circumstances.

The Deputy, to be fair to him, has raised the situation in St. Helen's Court involving five tenants or families, which is unacceptable. Under existing constitutional frameworks, there is a balance to be struck in terms of how far we can go in legislation. Any proposals that would just remove a landlord's right to terminate a tenancy could be subject to and would carry the risk of constitutional challenge. We have asked the housing commission to prioritise consideration of a constitutional amendment regarding a referendum on housing in respect of these issues. Fundamentally, that is where we have to go to ensure that situations like this one do not happen in the manner that it is happening.

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has told the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage that it will do everything it possibly can to ensure the five families do not fall into homelessness as a result of what is transpiring with the landlord in this case. The commission on housing is looking at issues around tenure, standards, sustainability and quality of life. As the Deputy will know, the Government has provided for tenancies of unlimited duration through the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2021, which means that all new tenancies created on or after 11 June 2022 would become tenancies of unlimited duration after six consecutive months of occupation under the tenancy without a valid notice of termination having been served.

Anything that can possibly be done, we are doing within the legal constraints to protect tenants as much as we possibly can. We have committed in the programme for Government to a referendum on housing. That work is being prioritised by the housing commission. It is fundamental to the core issue the Deputy raised.

On behalf of the tenants, I invite the Taoiseach, members of Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, the Labour Party and anyone else who can to get down to the courts to support those tenants. There will be a solidarity rally on Friday.

None of the things the Taoiseach has just mentioned would protect these tenants. The tenancies of indefinite duration still allow a vulture fund to evict tenants under these circumstances. I do not buy the constitutional obstacles to protecting tenants. During Covid the Government brought in an eviction ban under pressure. What happened? The number of people going into homelessness fell from over 10,000 to 7,000 and would have kept falling except for the fact the Government lifted that ban. It was able to do it during Covid; it can do it now. Why does it not do it?

The Tyrrelstown amendment provides that if there are more than ten tenants in a multi-unit complex, they cannot be evicted. This vulture fund tried to evict ten, did not get away with it, came back and evicted fewer than ten and then bullied the rest out. If it can be done for ten tenants, it can be done for anybody. The Government must protect them from unfair evictions. It should not allow vulture funds to evict people for profit and it must control rents so that the landlords cannot charge these extortionate rents.

The constitutional framework does restrict. It was possible during Covid because of lockdown and the 5 km rule. The legal advice was that in that context, in a lockdown scenario, one could do it but one could not do it outside of that where people could move to get alternative accommodation. When people were restricted to the 5 km rule the legal judgment was made that we could freeze evictions. That was the legal advice presented to us in that regard.

On ten houses versus five, again it was a question of balance in terms of how at risk would one be constitutionally and open to challenge if one did anything less because there are competing rights here in terms of the Constitution and the law.

That is poor comfort for decent tenants being evicted.

I know that. I am trying to give an honest answer.

It is poor comfort.

The Taoiseach without interruption.

There are always constraints on the Legislature because we have a written Constitution. That is why we live in the kind of democracy that we do. We are one of the few countries that have a written Constitution, which is a limitation on the Executive and the Oireachtas.

Thank you, Taoiseach.

We have the power through constitutional amendment if we so wish.

The Constitution includes the common good.

The only power I have is in relation to time. If we could watch that just a little bit.