Mr. Mike Allen:

I wish to pick up on the points made by colleagues in Community Action Network, which were extremely valuable. Many of the problems we are talking about, anti-social behaviour and so on, essentially arise from our problems with drug abuse, the drug trade and criminality. Currently, in terms of the legislation before the committee, one is trying to address those problems with an eviction policy. While an eviction policy might be part of it, as Mr. Peter Dorman said we also need a housing policy. An eviction policy is not a housing policy; it is part of it. A much more sophisticated housing policy and a whole range of other services and supports, both criminal justice supports and community supports that communities need, are required. It is not possible to deal with a problem so complex simply by having an eviction policy. The current legislation attempts to do that and I think it will become badly unstuck. The homeless services will fill up with people with whom we are not able to deal because the system is already unable to deal with them.

Senator Denis Landy asked about rent control. Clearly, we should not think the answer is simply a guy in a suit somewhere deciding what the rent should be across the country and that everybody will have to stick to that. Clearly that would not work. There is already rent regulation right across the private rented sector in Ireland. One is not allowed to change the rent more than once a year and one is allowed to change it only in line with the market. That allows for the fact that it will probably be more expensive to rent in Dublin than in Tipperary and elsewhere to be reflected. We could look to what extent we identify that. We could say that it cannot be changed more than once a year and that one is not allowed to vary it by X amount. Additional controls could be inserted as to when the landlord wishes to move it to change the rent. There are limitations as to how they can do that and over what what time period and with the reasons they might do it. Landlords have already gone through a huge collapse in rent levels in various parts of the country. Given how the housing market works, this will work both ways. The people who want to invest in housing want to know the bottom will not fall out of the rental market from time to time, rendering them unable to pay their mortgage and, equally, people who want to live in rented accommodation want to know that the rent will not suddenly sky rocket and make them unable to stay there. Some form of moderation, through regulation, not formally rent setting in an old-fashioned sort of way, is the way to go. We recognise this is a sophisticated question and we would need some elaboration to get a system that would work.