Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I support the spirit of amendment No. 133. I realise that we will come back to these matters on Report Stage and in the new year when we see the outworkings of the Minister's rental strategy, which was launched today.

Obviously we will come back to some of this material on Report Stage. I presume that in the new year we will see the outworkings of the Minister's rental strategy, which was launched today. I am firmly of the view, however, that we need to move at a speedier rate to tenancies of a more definite duration than the Minister outlined today. He clearly outlined the move from four to six as a first step, and while that is fine, it depends on when we get to take the second and third steps. On that basis I am still going to press amendment No. 145.

I wish to support Deputy Seamus Healy. We had a very important and detailed presentation by Focus Ireland in the AV room a couple of weeks ago. They have done a fair amount of research on the last secure tenancy of many of the families they are working with who are currently in emergency accommodation. They found that the last secure tenancy of a significant majority of those families was in private rental accommodation. Some of them may have been transitioned through to family accommodation for a short period, or sofa surfing, before ending up in emergency accommodation. The difficulty that Focus Ireland identified is that unless there is a greater level of protection for those kind of families we will see them continuing into homeless at some rate. Focus Ireland's research showed that in most cases those families were in properties owned by a single landlord. They were either served notice to quit because of repossession proceedings or the sale of a property.

In this amendment - which is a more sophisticated than the one I drafted - Focus Ireland is trying to find ways of excluding certain categories of landlord without drawing the net too widely. In particular, this concerns those whose mortgages were funded by buy-to-let mortgages or by availing of section 23 tax reliefs. There is enormous merit in what Focus Ireland has tried to do. It speaks more directly to some of the concerns the Minister has articulated regarding his nervousness in intervening in a way that causes difficulties for landlords with one or two properties. My own amendments draw the net much wider than that.

The Minister should consider amendment No. 148 and while I am not expecting him to accept it, it is one that he should examine with a view to tabling further amendments on Report Stage. If we cannot provide this minimum set of protections that Focus Ireland is requesting, we will not be able to stem the flow of families into emergency accommodation.

I know the Minister will not accept amendment No. 149 but at some point we will have to move to a situation whereby residential rental properties are treated similarly to commercial ones. When an individual decides to rent, they are not just renting temporary accommodation for a short period but are renting a home. I know the Minister's views on this and it is my intention to press the amendment. The amendment aims to remove the sale of property as a grounds for notice to quit. I know that sounds harsh, particularly in some categories of accidental landlords, but one must balance that. We hear the Minister talking quite a lot about this in his approach to the rental strategy balance between investors and tenants. However, we also need a balance between accidental landlords and tenants who, in the kind of cases we are concerned about, are effectively rendered homeless and go into emergency accommodation. That is something that needs to be addressed.

My amendment No. 150 is a clumsier attempt to do what Focus Ireland did, so I am more than happy to withdraw it in favour of theirs. They did a much better job on the amendment, but mine attempts to do the same thing.

Amendment No. 163 generated considerable debate in the Seanad. On Second Stage the Minister outlined that he was keen to draw the threshold back from five to ten. There is simply no value in giving a minority of tenants this valuable protection - whether it concerns landlords with 20, ten or five - when the vast majority of tenants will not get that protection, particularly those most vulnerable due to the financial insecurity of their own landlords. I do not expect the Minister to support the amendment because he is seeking to move it in the other direction. As I said on Second Stage, however, this will create two classes of tenant protections. For example, a tenant - whether it is five or ten - will get a protection when that property is repossessed and there is an attempt to sell it on, versus the poor unfortunate who is in the property of an accidental landlord. I do not see how that can be justified given the impact on the tenant and the need for equity in the protection of tenants' rights.

I will discuss amendments Nos. 164, 167 and 168 together. These try to remove or limit the Minister's proposed exemptions for landlords who will be caught in the threshold, albeit five at the moment or ten if the Minister manages to get it changed on Report Stage. Given the impact on families who could end up homeless and the cost to the Exchequer of people having to be in emergency accommodation for 12, 16 or 24 months - particularly in the Dublin region - I cannot see how those exceptions are justified.