Proposals to resume elevator installations in refugee housing complexes have been put back on the agenda of the House refugee committee with the aim of submitting a bill to the plenum for approval, MPs on the committee said on Tuesday.

Committee chairman Nikos Kettiros insisted that the government could act on this matter immediately if it chose to. “If the government wants to proceed, it will be able to proceed. There are solutions and they can be implemented from tomorrow,” he said.

The initiative is part of the Ktizo plan and follows a joint suggestion by Kettiros and MPs Christos Christofides, Christos Christofias, Nikos Georgios, Giorgos Karoulas, Rita Theodorou Superman and Onoufrios Koullas.

Kettiros said elevators had been fitted in 193 apartment buildings nationwide, but that in the last three years all progress was halted, a pause that has drawn criticism from MPs and elderly residents affected by mobility issues.

DISY MP Superman explained that the halt was attributed to an opinion from the legal service stating that the installation of such elevators constitutes an infringement on private property.

Superman questioned the reasoning of this logic, explaining that Ktizo itself involved similar infringements yet was nevertheless implemented by the government without objection.

“Are our refugee citizens condemned to live the rest of their lives trapped on the third floor?” she said. “The situation is tragic, yet there are methods by which the government could intervene and help”.

“We will move forward with a proposal for a law,” she concluded.