The Sinn Féin Bill before the Dáil is one last chance to stop thousands from losing their homes. Our legislation to extend the eviction ban buys the Government the time needed to use emergency powers to create necessary capacity and safety nets for vulnerable renters. The Bill, based on the Government's own legislation passed last October, will protect those facing eviction and homelessness in the coming weeks. If passed, it would be legally binding on the Oireachtas and would force Government to act. This Bill provides every Member of the Dáil the opportunity to state, through a vote on legislation, where they stand and to vote to protect working families, single people and pensioners from losing their homes, or to vote to evict them into the prospect of homelessness.

At the eleventh hour, the Government puts down an amendment. It does this not to improve outcomes for people but to prevent a straight, substantive and binding vote on a decision that spells disaster for so many. It is a deeply cynical move that demonstrates again that this Government disregards the trauma and devastation facing people from Saturday on. Digging in and refusing to allow a straight, substantive vote on the eviction ban shows that this Government is all over the place, scrambling to defend an indefensible decision. The truth is that this Government has put more energy into ducking this vote than it has into providing a credible answer to the fundamental question, which remains: where are people to go?

Last night, my colleague, Deputy Denise Mitchell, raised the case of a woman in her 70s who faces eviction. Can the Taoiseach fathom the stress this woman is going through, facing homelessness in her golden years? Is this really where we are now? Where is that woman to go? Or the mother of three children facing eviction from the middle of April who is at her wits' end, worrying about how she tells her children that they are out in a matter of weeks: “Pack your toys, your schoolbooks into bin liners. Pack up your memories. We must go.” How on earth do you tell a child that their home is no longer their home?

Can any member of the Government answer this question? Can any Deputy who backs this cruel decision answer this question? I think not. I know they cannot because this is the reality of lifting the eviction ban without having effective measures in place. They have no plan that will make a lick of difference to those who are at risk of losing their homes from 1 April onwards. The clock is ticking down and they are playing with people’s lives.

Is tubaiste uafásach é do na mílte teaghlach atá ag obair, daoine singil agus pinsinéirí deireadh an cosc ar dhíshealbhú. Is é Bille Shinn Féin an t-aon bhealach le stop a chur leis na mílte daoine atá chun a dtithe a chailleadh. Ba cheart don rialtas stop ag obair in éadan an réiteach, athchinneadh a dhéanamh agus an cosc ar dhíshealbhú a shíneadh amach.

I will put it to the Taoiseach one last time before Saturday, before it is too late. Do not lift this vital protection for thousands of renters. Do not escalate a housing and homelessness crisis that is already out of control. Buy the much-needed time to do what is necessary to protect vulnerable renters. I am asking the Taoiseach to keep the ban in place until the end of January.

I thank the Deputy. We do not believe that extending the winter eviction moratorium to December, or January, or April, or whatever the Deputy’s policy is this week, is a solution. We think it will just make homelessness worse, but at a later point. The solution is a different one: it is more social housing, it is the tenant in situ scheme, it is more supply, it is tax changes to encourage small landlords to stay in the market and new ones to come in, and it is also funding homelessness prevention services, and that is what we are going to do.

I absolutely appreciate there are a lot of people who are very worried at the moment, people who have received a notice to quit in the past couple of months. They are fearful, they are worried and, in many cases, they are experiencing real anxiety, and I understand that. What I do not appreciate is the Deputy exploiting those fears, adding to them and seeking to amplify them. That is wrong. The answer to the Deputy's question for the vast majority of people who have a notice to quit served on them is that they will find a new tenancy, perhaps with the help of the Government, a local authority or a voluntary body.

As I said earlier in the Dáil, 50,000 new tenancies were created last year. I know Deputy Ó Broin accused me of misleading the House earlier in that regard so, since then, I have checked the facts. According to the Residential Tenancies Board, 52,000 new tenancies were created over the last four quarters, that is, Q4 2021 to Q3 2022.

I will now read from the Q3 RTB index report so everyone is clear on this. It states:

Annual tenancy registration came into effect on 4th April 2022 and requires landlords to register their tenancy every year, within one month of the anniversary of when that tenancy began. As the purpose of the Rent Index is to measure developments in the prices faced by those taking up new tenancies only, it therefore at present does not include annual tenancy registrations or existing tenancies. However, given the systematic change of data collection activities with the commencement of annual registrations, prior to beginning the usual Rent Index methodology, the Q3 2022 dataset was subject to additional checks to attempt to ensure the continuity of the underlying data and that they relate to new market registrations only.

Once again, Deputy Ó Broin gets his facts wrong and no level of confidence or chutzpah can cover that up.

I know for sure that lifting the eviction ban means the prospect of homelessness for thousands of people, and the Taoiseach knows that too. I know too their fears, their worry, their anxiety, and I know that amplifying that fact, amplifying that experience, is not in the least bit exploitative. As a matter of fact, those who face the prospect of homelessness in a matter of days expect us to come to the Dáil, expect us to amplify and to express that experience, expect us to fight the Taoiseach tooth and nail and not to give up in our bid to have him change his mind.

The Taoiseach said - I have to say, in a very trite manner again - that there is nothing really to worry about here: “Sure, they will get new tenancies”; “Sure, they will be all right.”

I did not say that.

That is simply not true. Have we not spent the last weeks and months, and has the Taoiseach not spent them, lamenting the fact that we are losing landlords, that we are losing capacity in the private rental sector? I ask the Taoiseach to answer this question again, and this time to try to answer it straight: where will people go? My appeal has fallen on deaf ears, it seems. We will have a vote this evening. I hope the rest of us on these benches have heard those amplified stories of hardship and fear, and we will do the right thing, even if Government will not.

I thank the Deputy. I think I have answered that question four or five times now, both this week and last. The only thing the Deputy’s ears are deaf to is the answer because she just does not want to hear it. She has renewed her call to me - fair enough. Let me renew my call to her. There are three ways in which the Sinn Féin Party can help us to alleviate this terrible housing crisis.

Sinn Féin members can stop opposing new housing in their constituencies. They can take the pressure off first-time buyers by ending their opposition to the help-to-buy and first home schemes. They can stop threatening landlords with more restrictions and more taxes. Those are the three things Sinn Féin can do to help us with this monumental task of ending the housing crisis.

People are going to be homeless next week. Where are they going to go?

I again ask all Sinn Féin Deputies, Senators and councillors to please do so.

The Taoiseach is misleading the Dáil.

Could the Taoiseach stop forcing people into homelessness? That is more in his line.