Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I was putting priority questions to the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government in the Dáil. I have read the witnesses' opening statements and have been watching the proceedings. I apologise for not being here.

Fianna Fáil facilitated this Bill coming to the committee by abstaining in the vote in order to allow people put their views forward whether they agreed with Deputy Wallace's Bill or not. There is a large portion of his Bill that I do not agree with and that I do not think is workable. I sense the frustration across the sector, public and private, but this conversation should never be a question of tenant versus landlord or landlord versus tenant. Good legislation does not have to be anti-landlord or pro-tenant. It is a question of balance. That is what we need. We need to take out some of the blunt instruments which make for good headlines from time to time but we should not dismiss every element. We should look within the Bill at some parts of it that would absolutely have merit, as in seeking to include a lending or financial institution in the definition of a landlord. There should be no issue with that. It is something my party proposed. I would like to see it included in the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Bill 2018.

I thank the USI for coming here again today. I would be more than hopeful that the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Bill 2018 that the Government is bringing forward would include purpose-built student accommodation. We had a private session on the Bill a couple of weeks ago, and my party introduced legislation last year that defines purpose-built student accommodation, which is defined in the Planning and Development Act 2018. It can be done, we can bring in a licence to reside. We have lost a year on this and this committee is unanimous in ensuring that students are given the protection they deserve and that they get the protection of the rent pressure zones. A licence to reside also falls under that Act. My understanding is that will be brought forward in this Bill.

The committee met in private session to discuss it. I have made it clear to the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, that it should be addressed. In fairness to Sinn Féin, my colleague Deputy Ó Broin agrees that if the Government does not bring it forward, we will table amendments to the Bill and have them passed. The Labour Party and others have also agreed to this in order to ensure students will get the protection they need. I acknowledge that more needs to be done, but it has been quite tortuous to get to this stage. However, we will get there eventually. The job of the committee is to deal with things in a structured way to ensure the measures introduced will work. I could produce Bills every day of the week that would make big pronouncements on certain things, but if they are not implementable, legal and constitutional, we would just be leading people down the garden path and giving them false hope. As I said, financial lending institutions should be encompassed within the definition of "landlord".

Supply is a major issue across public and private housing provision. Leaving aside private landlords, the State has been very slow to provide public and cost rental housing. More than 6,000 landlords were lost from the market last year. There are many good landlords. It is a significant issue. It is evident in my area of Dublin Fingal which has one of the youngest demographics in the country and where every apartment viewing is attended by between 30 and 40 couples. As Mr. McCafferty and Ms McCormick will know, the majority of those entering homelessness come from the private rental sector. As that sector is part of the solution, the idea of making it more difficult for people to enter the market through the blanket prohibition on evictions proposed in Deputy Barry's Bill simply would not work. It would have the unintended consequence of driving more landlords out of the market which would mean less availability, unless the State could pick up the slack and provide housing, as it should. I have always been a supporter of public housing provision.

One does not have to be especially perceptive to sense the frustration of Ms McCormick and Mr. O'Brien, in particular. In fairness, I also recognise the restraint shown by Deputy Barry during his exchanges with them. All present hold pieces of the puzzle and it is possible for advocacy groups, Threshold, students, property owners and the State to solve the problem together.

We need to strengthen tenants' rights. My party proposes to table more than 25 amendments to the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill to so do. We need to strengthen these rights in a real and tangible way. However, we also need to ensure we are not driving people out of the market, unless the State can step in and provide housing. The committee held a private meeting two weeks ago, at which it went through a significant number of amendments to the Bill with the Minister. We did it in private session on a cross-party basis involving all of the members present to try to gain agreement and expedite the process. The Government wants to have the Bill passed by 19 April. I am somewhat concerned that it has been two weeks since that meeting and the Bill has not been progressed. It is a matter for the Chairman to ascertain when the Bill will be progressed because it will be of assistance.

Certain measures brought forward in the budget were criticised by some parties. I suggested the incentivisation of long-term leases in an attempt to strengthen the rights of existing tenants, but other parties criticised it as a boon to landlords. That was not the motivation behind it. I was trying to ensure longer leases would be offered because it is a significant problem in Ireland.

Pre-legislative scrutiny by the committee is very important . We wished to ensure the Bills in question were subject to scrutiny because there was merit to aspects of the legislation brought forward by Deputy Jan O'Sullivan and, in fairness, Deputy Barry. There are other elements of the Bills with which Fianna Fáil does not agree. That is why it is important that it be done in public session in order that the views of all present can be taken on board as we progress the various items of legislation, particularly the Government's Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill that it is hoped will reach Committee Stage in the next two weeks.