I wish to again raise with the Taoiseach the housing crisis, which is a housing emergency, despite the Government's failure and refusal to declare it as such. In the lead-up to the important Raise the Roof rally on Saturday, which we in the Labour Party will support, along with many others in opposition, I wish to raise the real-world effects of this housing emergency in my constituency.

On Rathmines Road, in Dublin Bay South, tenants in 20 apartments across two houses are facing eviction. Many of them are paying in excess of €1,000 or €1,200 a month for a single-bedroom apartment. Some of them have lived there for more than ten years, while others have been there for 20 years. They are now facing eviction. Despite the Tyrrelstown agreement ruling, which apparently seeks to restrict mass evictions of this nature, the company that owns the property is using what can only be described as a legal loophole in section 35A of the Residential Tenancies Act to take these families' and individuals' homes away from them. Why? Because the company says the sale of the property would drop by 20% of its market value were the tenants kept in place and the landlord would endure undue hardship if that were the case. According to reports, the landlord in this case owns 70 apartments across the city and the most recent figures available show the company owned, in total, more than €20 million of investment property in 2019 - undue hardship indeed. Not too far away from Rathmines, more than 100 residents in Tathony House, Kilmainham, Dublin 8 have been served an eviction notice. Again, the landlord there has invoked section 35A.

We need to secure greater protection for renters in these situations. We need to ensure undue hardship for those who are renting - the families who are going to be put out of their homes as a result of these evictions - is what is prioritised in our laws, not the undue hardship provision for landlords. A home should not be a commodity.

Yesterday, the Taoiseach complained in the House that the Opposition is not providing constructive solutions and proposals to address the housing emergency. That is simply not the case for us in the Labour Party. In recent weeks, my colleague, Senator Rebecca Moynihan, our housing spokesperson, suggested the imposition of an eviction ban, which is now Government policy. We also suggested revising the income thresholds for social housing eligibility. Again, that is now Government policy. We suggested a vacant homes tax. Although it has been watered down, it is welcome to see that it is now Government policy.

This progress is welcome but I will offer two more constructive proposals. First, to protect vulnerable renters such as those in Rathmines and Kilmainham, will the Government take on the Labour Party’s Residential Tenancies (Tenants' Rights) Bill 2021 that we put before this House a year ago and which passed Second Stage without opposition from Government? It would give tenants better protections. Second, as I asked yesterday, will the Government use the term of the winter eviction ban to fund and strengthen the tenant in situ scheme? Will it use the opportunity to buy back housing and shrink the private rental sector to ensure greater protections for families and renters who are facing eviction?

I thank the Deputy for raising what is a very important issue. In her opening remarks, she referred to a refusal to use the word "emergency". I pointed out yesterday to the House that when I was launching Housing for All in September 2021 my precise words were, "but the fact is that the social emergency that is our housing crisis cannot and will not be solved by any one department on its own". We will not get into semantics. Suffice to say that housing is the number one and single most urgent and important social issue facing the country. Access to housing is fundamental to our security, stability, health and progress as a nation. There is scarcely a family in the country untouched by the crisis. That is why Housing for All is a very broadly-based programme.

In terms of rents, we need more supply. We need more supply and we need to build more houses more rapidly to give people greater access to different types of housing, whether that is social housing, affordable housing, cost rental or people purchasing on the private market. We have introduced a rent cap. Since December last year, the maximum by which landlords can increase rents annually in rent pressure zones, RPZs, which now cover a large part of the country, is 2%. We extended all RPZs to the end of 2024. A tenant who has been renting for at least six months now automatically gets security of tenure and can stay in his or her rented property indefinitely, so long as certain conditions apply. We also have the eviction Act, which has delayed and deferred any evictions until 31 March next year. There is a range of protections that have been passed by the House following legislation introduced by the Minister.

In respect of the specific issue raised by the Deputy, there is the Tyrrelstown amendment, which offers some protection. The Government has given local authorities the capacity and resources to purchase and it has communicated to local authorities to purchase tenancies in situ or houses where tenants are in situ in respect of HAP. These properties can be bought with the tenants staying in situ. Approximately 600 is my indication of the number that have been purchased or are in the process of being purchased to date.

We need to look at the specific issue and the two cases that have been raised by the Deputy to see if anything further can be done to deal with what she is describing as a loophole. In the framing of the Tyrrelstown amendment, there has to be a balance to make sure we do not get it wrong from a constitutional perspective. That said, our objective and motivation is to protect tenants to the greatest degree possible.

We can engage in semantic discussion about language, but what the 20% of the country who are now living in private rental accommodation want to see is action on this issue. We in the Labour Party have very much welcomed it when the Government has taken action, albeit belatedly, such as with the winter eviction ban.

However, we do not think this action has been enough. We have called for a three-year freeze on rents, which is a crucial policy that should be brought in by the Government. Caps in rent pressure zones have simply not been sufficient to address the significant increases in rents we saw in yesterday's daft.ie report, notwithstanding that cap. We also want to see greater protection for tenants against mass evictions. I welcome the Taoiseach's comments on that. How can we stand over a provision in section 35A that allows companies such as Hazelwood Walk Holdings Limited, the company at issue in Rathmines, to claim undue hardship? Why is the undue hardship of a property company more important than the undue hardship that tenants, renters and, in many cases, families, face, if they are trying to find new accommodation in the face of an eviction notice? What determines market value and how is it assessed in this scenario? How does the property company know that it will lose 20% of market value? As legislators, how can we stand over legislation that allows them to claim that and put 20 households out of a home, once the winter eviction ban has concluded?

The legislation was well balanced in trying to give additional protections to tenants. In many instances, it has been effective in giving that protection. Much of the legislation we have passed has given protection. Some of the issues the Deputy identified in respect of the individual case are legally challengeable. We will examine that to see if any further actions can be taken to rebalance the legislation. If the legislation is being exploited in a way that is wrong, we will have to deal with that.

Many thousands of people will come out on the streets for the Raise the Roof demonstration because of the failure of the Government to address the absolutely diabolical housing and homelessness crisis. I have brought to the Gallery some of the people for whom this is a life and death matter. Deputy Bacik may not have been aware that some of the residents of Tathony House she referred to are present. The 35 families in Tathony House have done nothing wrong but are facing eviction by a landlord who has had a massive rent roll of approximately €750,000 a year for all the years they have been his tenants. They now face eviction and the possibility of being put out on the street. They are scared and that is why they are here.

Residents from Rathmines Road are also in the Gallery. More than 20 families and individuals there are facing the prospect of eviction on grounds of sale. I have also brought in residents from St. Helen's Court, who have faced four years with the sword of eviction hanging over their necks from two different vulture funds that are trying to mass evict them. This is important in the context of the Tyrrelstown amendment and all the rest of it. Although the residents are still there, they now have an active eviction order against them. Even when they defeated the last three attempts by the landlord to circumvent the Tyrrelstown amendment, the fear, stress and anxiety led many of the tenants to leave. They could not put up with the stress on them and their families. The fear, stress and hardship that these people in the Gallery are suffering is shocking.

Jacqueline is also in the Gallery. She, her husband and her two teenage daughters are being evicted from the home in which they have lived for 55 years. Jacqueline was born in the house. They are a working family but they cannot get a mortgage because they are too old and the bank will not lend them money. They are over the income threshold so they are not entitled to social housing and they face the prospect of the street, unless the Government intervenes. Stella and her two daughters in Bray also face eviction, not only from where Stella lives but, since she is self-employed, from where she does her business. She will not only lose her home but her job. Their situation is best summed up by Jacqueline. She speaks for all of them when she wrote in a letter I will hand to the Taoiseach after this:

My darling, beloved husband will be put into an early grave as he is a broken man. As the dad of the house and as a husband he cannot fix this, This whole situation is affecting both our health. We are a broken family living dark days in fear, Minister. I need you to fix this and I need you to fix this now.

The question from all these people is: will the Government use the €500 million allocated to housing that it has not spent to buy their houses and apartment blocks to prevent these families and individuals from being put into homelessness, and end the suffering, hardship and trauma they and their families are suffering, as are many others?

As I said in reply to Deputy Bacik, the Government has brought in a range of legal measures to protect tenants insofar as we possibly can. Section 35A of the Residential Tenancies Act, known as the Tyrrelstown amendment, provides that where a landlord proposes to sell ten or more units within a single development at the same time, that sale is subject to the existing tenants remaining in situ, other than in exceptional circumstances. That is what is stated in the legislation. It was a carefully drafted amendment to promote security of tenure in the interests of the common social good. It strikes a balance between the right of landlords to sell their properties and achieve a fair return on their investment and the right of tenants to security of tenure. As Deputy Bacik pointed out, there is an issue with how that is being adjudicated upon, or being progressed or prosecuted, whether it is by landlords or if the matter has been referred to the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB. I am not sure whether the cases the Deputy outlined have been referred to the RTB.

As Deputy Boyd Barrett knows, we brought in the Residential Tenancies Act 2022, which provides for the deferment of termination of certain tenancies to the end of March. We will examine the issues he raised. We have a timeframe within which to do that but a balance has to be struck when stating that the answer to every single situation is the local authority buying out private housing for people who are way above the income eligibility thresholds. Those thresholds have been increased by approximately €5,000 in the interim across all local authorities. That may not cover the situations the Deputy identified but, again, a balance has to be struck there as well. We will examine the individual situations he raised. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has engaged on the issue of Tathony House, in particular, and has also worked with the council.

The priority in purchasing homes in situ has been in respect of the housing assistance programme, people who are on the housing assistance payment, HAP, and those renting houses under HAP or, indeed, the rental accommodation scheme. Approximately 600 properties have now been purchased where tenants remain in situ. The issue is that the Deputy is saying we should go higher than those eligibility thresholds. That has to be examined in a comprehensive way. It cannot just apply to every single specific case that arises no matter how difficult it is, and it is very difficult for the people concerned who were identified by the Deputy. That is why we will engage with the tenants and the council in the area to see what can be done in that respect. We will also make sure that we can support the tenants in the affirmation of their rights and entitlements under the Act. From what has been said, maybe the calls being made by the landlords in respect of this Act may not be the correct ones, legally.

I ask the Taoiseach to look those people in the eyes. There has to be a solution. They have done nothing wrong. They paid their rent, they worked and they paid their taxes. The Taoiseach cannot say that there may not be an answer because of this legislative shortcoming or that legislative loophole. If people's incomes, for example, are under €53,000, even according to the Government's schemes, they are in need of some subsidy because that is what the cost-rental threshold is. Every single one of the people I mentioned are below that threshold. There is no reason, with the €500 million that the Government has not spent on housing and that is in its hands, that it could not buy those apartment complexes and houses to prevent people being driven into homelessness. We are spending €213 million on homeless services in the Dublin region alone. The Government can keep spending money on people in desperate emergency accommodation or it could buy those houses and those people would be paying rent to the State. The Government would then save them the suffering, hardship and trauma they are now feeling. I ask the Taoiseach to give them hope. The Government has the money, there is nothing to stop it doing this and it would make life better for people who are really suffering.

The Deputy has made his point.

That is what I am asking the Taoiseach to do. Please do it for these people who do not deserve to be put through what they are being put through at the moment.

I again thank the Deputy for raising the issue. I have said that I will engage with the Minister on this.

The Minister said in this House that he engaged with the Deputy about Tathony House. He has engaged with the council on this. We will examine this to see what we can do to help the tenants. Our only interest is helping the tenants in terms of security of tenure. All our legislation has been about security of tenure and trying to provide extra protections. In fact, we have been criticised for that by people on the other side who say this has reduced the number of properties available to rent so restrictive are the measures we have introduced. In this instance, there is a threshold at some stage in terms of where the State gets involved and buys up everything. I am not saying this is what the Deputy is saying here. He referenced specific cases on which we will follow through and see what we can do to help the tenants.