Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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That is fine. I move amendment No. 2:

In page 8, between lines 13 and 14, to insert the following: “Report on Rent Tax Credit

4. The Minister shall, within one month of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before Dáil Éireann a report on the Rent Tax Credit operating in the absence of a cap on rents, making a direct comparison between the amount of the credit and rent increases across the State for each year that the credit has been in operation.”.

Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 are in my name. While I wish to speak on the amendments that have been brought in by colleagues regarding indexation and refundable tax credits, for the purposes of this section, I am just going to deal with rent tax credits. I will come in later and discuss the other ones. I know they are grouped but there are no time limits on the committee and therefore, we can decide which way we want to deal with them and that is the way I am going to deal with them. On the renter's tax credit, as the Minister will recognise, there is a bit of a trend here. This is another area where he has broken his promise to the public. He promised the public that he would increase the renter's tax credit. He said he would increase it to €1,500 but it is still at €1,000. He made it clear that it would be €100 extra per year, so it was not the case that it might happen some time in the future; it was an explicit commitment that this would be happening every year. The Minister has chosen to provide tax reductions for others instead. Fianna Fáil actually went further in its manifesto; it wanted to see the number increase to €2,000.

I made the case many years ago that we needed to see the renter's tax credit. In fairness to the Minister and the rare occasions that we do agree on some things, he made the point that the reports, including that of the Commission on Taxation, which looked at the previous iteration of the renter's tax credit introduced in the 1980s, called for its abolition and for it to be phased out, which happened a number of years ago. The Minister made the point that it had the impact of pushing up rents. He rightly made the point that a renter's tax credit would have the same impact and that in reality, it would be a transfer to landlords. I agree with that point. That is why we have never argued solely for a renter's tax credit on its own. On its own, it will do exactly as the Minister and the Commission on Taxation have said, that is, pushing up the price of rent. Unfortunately that is what we have been seeing before the renter's tax credit and since it has been introduced. The Government always needed to introduce this measure with a ban on rent increases, thereby ensuring that a renter's tax increase went into the pockets of the tenants and not those of the landlords. That is what is happening here.

I have two issues in respect of these amendments. The first is for the Minister to lay a report before the Dáil on the renter's tax credit operating in the absence of a cap on rents, making the direct comparison between the amount of the credit and the rent increase across the State each year that the credit has been in operation. We can see some of that from the ESRI and RTB figures, and some of it from the Daft rental index, which shows there has been a significant increase in rents since this measure was introduced. We are talking about people who are paying thousands of euro extra each year because of the runaway rents we are seeing. Amendment No. 3 also calls on the Government to bring forward a report on the changing real value of the renter's tax credit in respect of rent prices, and the decision not to increase the rent tax credit. Again, that brings into focus the Minister's broken promise. There will be a list of broken promises as we go through the Finance Bill but we are only on section 4 and we have already come to two main ones. There is a broken promise in terms of the commitment he gave workers to reduce their taxation. Now there is a broken promise to renters, which was not about extending the rent tax credit. I am sure the Minister will talk about that; it has happened. He went way further than that. He said he recognised the pressures that were on individuals and that he was going to increase the renter's tax credit. Renters will get no increase next year. They will get what they got. Landlords will get an increase next year. Well done. Priorities are very clear. Landlords get €1,000 of a rent increase. It is not in this Finance Bill but was stitched into a previous Finance Act. Renters do not get an increase on what they already got. The reality is that what the renters get is going to end up in the pockets of the landlords, because the Government refuses to bring in meaningful measures that would prevent rents increasing during this period of absolute crisis for renters.