Mr. Gavin Elliott:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to present on the Ban on Sex for Rent Bill 2022. We welcome the introduction of this legislation, which seeks to prevent the exploitation of people who are seeking a secure and safe home to rent. I agree with and echo the comments that have already been made. We are taking this opportunity to make comment on the Bill and recommend several changes, which we suggest would make it more victim friendly and ensure that protection and support were available to victims.

As Deputy Cian O'Callaghan has stated, the full extent of the issue is unknown. A small number of private renters have spoken publicly, and none of us can be anything but horrified by what we have read in the press. Few of Threshold's clients have reported such propositions by their landlords or prospective landlords to us. This may not be particularly surprising, though, as it may not be the sort of issue that a renter would contact Threshold or, indeed, the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, about. No reporting mechanism is in place and, as we have heard from Deputy O'Callaghan, it is not an offence at the moment to engage in such behaviour.

While reliable evidence on the prevalence of the issue in Ireland is not available, international comparators can provide us with some troubling indications that the recent press reports on this issue may only be the tip of the iceberg. Of particular concern is research from England, a jurisdiction that shares a similar rental culture to Ireland. It would be a mistake not to regard the evidence that has been gathered in England about this practice as significant and an indication that the practice might not only be occurring in Ireland, but might be worse. England is not experiencing an across-the-board housing crisis to the extent Ireland is. Evidence of the prevalence of the issue in England must be viewed in light of a similar rental culture and a much more constrained rental market in Ireland. We have heard about the research conducted by Shelter in England. If those proportions were replicated in Ireland, it would equate to almost 4,000 renter households. Obviously, there is a major caveat with this figure, but it is significant nonetheless.

The legislation in England has not been successful in tackling the issue despite attempts to do so, partly due to an attempt to prosecute offenders under more general legislation dealing with prostitution offences. Since the issuing of prosecution guidelines in the UK in 2019, there has been just one successful prosecution. The lesson from the UK is that shoehorning sex-for-rent offences into existing offences risks mislabelling the offences and obscuring the nature of both crimes. Threshold suggests that the reporting of such offences be incorporated into existing victim-friendly processes, such as those created by the report, Supporting a Victim's Journey. NGOs working with people who may be victims of these offences should be empowered to provide mechanisms through which people may make such disclosures.

We are particularly concerned for sitting tenants who report such practices. As it stands, many private renters do not report wrongdoing by their landlords for fear of eviction. In such precarious situations, a tenant may fear retaliation or penalisation by his or her landlord if he or she reports the landlord for requesting sex or sexual favours in exchange for accommodation. A tenant may have no other housing options available and may be forced to remain under these circumstances, the only other option being homelessness. We suggest that the Bill be made coherent with section 14 of the Residential Tenancies Act, which prohibits penalisation for making a report to certain bodies. Incorporating in this Bill the making of a report might be sensible.

As currently drafted, the Bill will offer relatively little support to people who may be, or previously have been, in situations where there has been a sex-for-rent exchange. Satellite supports for victims need to be considered and put in place to aid the effectiveness of the Bill. This could include an expansion of domestic and-or sexual violence services to provide support for victims of these offences. For example, people who are reporting such offences could, where necessary, be supported by an extension of the recent rent supplement protocol between the Department of Social Protection and Tusla, counselling and housing supports. It is Threshold's experience that people, even in extreme housing difficulty, are sometimes forced to make a choice between unacceptable housing conditions and homelessness.