EIGHT families who were served with eviction notices at Grove Island in Corbally, would not be in the position they now find themselves if Housing Minister Simon Coveney acted to prevent mass evictions from occurring.
EIGHT families who were served with eviction notices at Grove Island in Corbally, would not be in the position they now find themselves if Housing Minister Simon Coveney acted to prevent mass evictions from occurring.That’s the view of Limerick Fianna Fáil TD Willie O’Dea who feels it’s ridiculous to see Minister Coveney attempting to intervene for the eight families in Grove Island when he had the chance to prevent such mass evictions from occurring as recently as last December.
Deputy O’Dea, who is party spokesman on Social Protection, pointed out that Minister Coveney rejected a key amendment to the Residential Tenancies Bill 2016 that would have prevented mass evictions from taking place.
“He made a deliberate decision before Christmas to disregard the plight of families in rented accommodation when he chose to side with vulture funds,” Deputy O’Dea told the Limerick Post.
“In recent months, we have seen an increase in the number of mass evictions taking place as a result of Minister Coveney’s failure to strengthen tenancy rights. The legislation put forward by Minister Coveney originally sought to prohibit landlords from evicting 20 or more families in a single development when the sale of the property is cited.”
Deputy O’Dea also pointed out that Fianna Fáil introduced an amendment which sought to offer more secure occupancy to a larger number of tenants, without infringing constitutional rights or having a detrimental impact on the rental market.
“However Minister Coveney rejected our amendment at the last minute and re-raised the number of units to ten in a single development. This decision removed tens of thousands of potential properties from the coverage of the provision.
“The Government argued that it had legal advice, which showed that the number had to be ten in order to ensure it could mount a robust defence against a possible constitutional challenge. We have since seen the legal advice from the Attorney General and are of the opinion that this does not in any way disallow our amendment, which sought to expand coverage of the tenancy protection from eviction,” he concluded.
by Alan Jacques
alan@limerickpost.ie
