Rory Hearne

If the Government had started a year and a half ago-----

Of course it would.

The Government made decisions for the institutional investor funds.

Yes, it has. That is why it increased the rents. It absolutely is.

I take note of the Ceann Comhairle's earlier comment, and I thank her. I am back to the rents. Who can afford these outrageous rents? Does the Taoiseach know how much of a nurse's take-home pay is needed to pay the average Dublin rent of €2,600 per month? It is every last cent of it. This is the most cruel and callous Government since the foundation of this State. The Government parties knew their…

Where are these people to go?

That is ridiculous.

That is ridiculous.

You are putting words in my mouth.

That is not true.

That is your view.

It is your view.

People being evicted onto the street is not "churn".

Where is the occupied territories Bill?

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion. I completely support what is set out in it. It is deeply frustrating and disappointing to engage in this debate again and see the absolute lack of concern on the Government's part. I will come back to this. I remember, when I was engaged in campaigning against the lifting of the eviction ban after Covid, describing the Government at the time as b…

I am.

What is unbelievable is 7,000 households being evicted in the first quarter of this year and not an eyelid batted or an intervention made on the part of the Government. I have looked at it historically. The figures are there. A total of 100,000 households were evicted between 1846 and 1852. This equates to between 15,000 to 16,000 households a year. How many households were evicted last year? The …

142. Deputy Rory Hearne asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to detail the interventions, schemes, programmes and policies employed by his Department to avoid people being made homeless by eviction, prevent them from entering into homeless accommodation and reduce the number of people evicted into homelessness; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37934/26]

I said earlier that this Government is the cruellest since the foundation of the State. The Minister waffles on about homelessness prevention but he will not do the one thing that could actually prevent people being made homeless, which is to put in place a ban on evictions. He has become and will be known as the Minister for evictions. We have record evictions and record homelessness, and the Min…

I absolutely stand over the comparison with the Famine. What the Minister is doing is refusing to acknowledge the trauma that is caused to every household that is evicted. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have stood over, year after year, evictions and homelessness rising. Deputy Browne is just another Minister who is standing over record homelessness and evictions. He said that I have no solutions. I se…

The Minister is spinning mistruths that he has put in place the biggest protections for tenants-----

-----when he has not protected existing tenants. He should correct the record.

The Minister has not give any protection to existing tenants.

They are all still as exposed to being evicted onto the streets in the same way they were before the Minister's new measures.

Yes.