Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

In my area, the average rent is €2,500 a month. A person will require €30,000 a year in after-tax income to pay the average rent. That is pretty much 100% of all of the after-tax income of the average worker. It is completely unsustainable. How do we address that completely unsustainable and unaffordable rental situation?

Things are worse in my part of Dublin. In most areas of the capital, however, when people find themselves evicted through no fault of their own because the landlord is selling the property for whatever reason or when they have to move out of their parents' home because it is unbearable or have a partner and kids and need somewhere to live, they are in deep trouble. I get the point that there is a big difference between some really nasty landlords - I have seen quite a few of them - and decent landlords. I have experienced good and decent landlords and I have also experienced the really ruthless ones. I will not go into the stories. I get that distinction, and I certainly would not be one for tarring everybody with the same brush. However, the problem is that with rents at that level, good, bad or indifferent, that is what landlords are charging. That is not affordable.

I suspect Mr. Kennedy will disagree with me, but I am not sure what he will say. We have to control rents and bring them to a level that is affordable for ordinary people. Our party view is that we should set rents. That would deal with some of the anomalies of RPZs. The legislation refers to an increase of 2% which means that rents are going up for those that might start at €2,000 or €2,500. A decent landlords who kept the rent at €500 month is limited to that percentage increase. Such landlords may well decide to get out of the market. To be honest, I am not massively sympathetic toward landlords who want to increase rents to €2,000 or €1,500. They have a case for saying that a rent of €400 or €500 may be a bit low. A better way to set rents would be to do what they do in some jurisdictions, namely, assess a property, have rough guidelines for what landlords can charge per metre squared and try to align those rents with what is affordable for people. We would then set rents at affordable levels. That is the sort of rent control we need. I am interested in hearing the comments of Mr. Kennedy on that proposal.

Dr. Lorcan Sirr made the good point that in places where there is more regulation of the rental sector, that leads to more rather than fewer rental properties. Regulation of the rental sector is not necessarily something that disincentivises landlords. Some of the most heavily regulated places have huge numbers of private landlords operating, but there is more security and certainty for everybody and more control and regulation. I would be interested in hearing comments on those matters.

Mr. Kennedy seems to be saying that the rent relief will not make much difference. In total, it is €450 million. That is quite a lot of money. If it will not make much difference and stop the haemorrhaging of small landlords from the market, then I do not see the point in it. To be honest, the people who are paying €2,000 or €2,500 per month in rent will not have a lot of sympathy for the idea that where there are limited resources, a sum of €480 million is being distributed to little effect to give landlords who are charging €2,000 or €2,500 per month an extra €2,000 or €3,000 each year, which is what it will do. That does not seem like a fair expenditure of limited resources. It would have little effect in terms of actually dealing with the rental situation. Maybe Mr. Kennedy could respond to some of those points.