Mr. Maurice Deverell:

The first thing is that the idea of one month’s deposit given at the start of a tenancy is ridiculous. It does not cover the tenant who has to give notice, which is a minimum of one month. Straight away, they are down in that regard and are always on the back foot compared with tenancy law. It is the way it is. When you look at Galway and empty properties, it is difficult to convince somebody to be a landlord because there are many things going against them. It is not only societal, but even trying to raise funds or to keep a property going. If there is somebody in south Galway and they take on a tenant before 1 March next, they will be stuck at the 2% or the HICP. From 1 January 2025 to 1 January 2026, the HICP is 0.7%. My insurance on one property went up by 28%. It is just ridiculous that we are stuck at this. Not only that, you are stuck at it until the tenant goes at some stage. That is if they go.

We are back at a sitting tenant’s scenario that we had many years ago. It is hard to sell anybody an idea of putting in €100,000, €200,000 or €500,000 of their money into a product that they can never get back. Why would someone do that? You go straight back to the banks, and they drop their interest rates. You go to Raisin Bank, and they drop their interest drops. You go to the stock market. You do whatever, but at least you can get your asset back. With the proposals we see in front of us, you cannot get your assets back.

The Senator referred to one property and one tenant. His friend is lucky. Let us say it is a four-bed house and it is let out on the basis of four separate tenancies or it is a pre-1963 building divided into four units, then the person involved is not lucky. What will happen is that those four beds will be the subject of four separate tenancies and the owner of the property will be classed as a large landlord. They let the property out from 1 March 2026, and they are then on a period of six years. If it is a property containing four units, the tenants do not all come in together. They come in year one, year three, year four and year five. As the years go by, the original six years are extended. Let us say I want to retire in 20 years’ time. By the time I get to my final six years, three of those units are going to be vacant for a period because I cannot put anybody into them unless I am sure that those people are going to move out. This is another reason why many of these rules are bad. If I am looking at a tenant that I am taking in on my final six-year routine, I am going to look for a transient tenant. I am not going to take in an older person, which would have ideal because they do not party, they pay their rent on time and they are generally quiet. I am going to take in a young person from somewhere foreign who will hopefully go home in a couple of years. There is so much against it that it hard to convince the Senator's friend to stay. That is why so many guys are getting out of the business.