Sinn Féin has said a bill to ban winter evictions is 'a symbol of how badly Government has handled the housing crisis'.
The party's housing spokesman, Eoin Ó Broin, has said it will support the bill - but this should not be a long-term policy.
It would defer no fault tenancy terminations that are due to happen in the winter months until after March 31st 2023.
The effective dates would also be staggered from that date into June next year, to avoid a "cliff edge" of terminations.
However, the protections would not extend to tenants who choose not to pay their rent, or breach other tenancy obligations.
The bill is to be processed as soon as possible, and could be effective from the start of November.
Deputy Ó Broin told The Hard Shoulder they agree with the bill in principle.
"This is a ban on no-fault evictions," he said.
"Anybody who willfully doesn't pay their rent, anybody who damages the property, anybody who's engaged in criminal activity - landlords will still, and rightly in my view, be able to take a notice to quit in those circumstances.
"Those types of incidents weren't protected by the last moratorium on evictions. According to what the Government has said... they won't be covered by this one.
"What we understand is the Government is going to essentially re-introduce the eviction ban that was there before.
"What that will mean is anybody who has a notice to quit, or a notice to quit is issued, essentially the process will pause for five months."
'Long-term policy'
Deputy Ó Broin said this approach should not be relied on in the long-term.
"We shouldn't be talking about an eviction ban; it is not a long-term healthy policy.
"It is a symbol of how badly Government has handled this housing crisis, how desperate the situation is.
"On the basis of what I've heard today, I think all sitting tenants who haven't got a notice yet - or all tenants who have a notice, but the notice hasn't expired - will probably get the protection.
"But the real issue is if the Government introduces this, and they will have our full support if they do it and do it right, that is not enough.
"Simply pausing evictions for five months doesn't fix the underlying problem, which is an absence of an adequate supply of social and affordable homes."
The Government has estimated 2,273 tenancies would have been ended this winter without the planned eviction ban.
Legislation will be brought before the Oireachtas next week to pass the Dáil and Seanad.
