Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)

It has been my experience on a number of occasions where a local authority increased rent payments that I have had to refer to a regulation by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government which provides that the maximum increase on rent supplement payments is 15%. This was the reason behind amendment No. 12. I accept that the amendment has been ruled out of order but I ask that some sort of regulation be introduced to the Bill in this regard.

Amendment No. 13 deals with the large proportion of private sector rental accommodation of which account has not been taken. In every local authority, hundreds or, in the case of cities, thousands of accommodation units are not yet registered with the Private Residential Tenancies Board. There is no mechanism, therefore, to make these landlords accountable. In my area, applicants receive forms from their community welfare officers which are signed by the local authority before they proceed to seek accommodation. There is no mechanism to allow for the inspection of the rental properties, however.

In regard to the rental sector, I am very annoyed by developers and builders who lease their properties while awaiting planning permission for further development. The condition of these rental units leaves a lot to be desired. I see examples of this practice every time I conduct house calls and during each election. When I enter a street, I can nearly tick off the rented accommodation because in many cases the walls or gates are falling down and the houses are in poor repair. It is rare that the occupants of these properties do not have something to report in regard to heating or cooking arrangements. No mechanism appears to be available to hold people to account.

Amendment No. 13 will require that a landlord in respect of whose property rent supplement is paid must be registered with the PRTB. The fee for registration is €75, which is a small sum, but at least it would allow us to determine whether the owner of a particular building is registered. Subsequent legislation could ensure the protection of tenants. The rental accommodation scheme is in place in a number of areas, which I welcome. From my knowledge of the scheme, the accommodation is first class, well looked after and well documented with the local authority. The payments are made from the local authority to the landlord and there is a mechanism available for the tenant to go to the local authority and ensure that if there is a problem with heating or other normal services, a link is provided.

This is not so with so many thousands of tenancies. Some of this legislation relates directly to them. The landlords in question will put the boot into the tenant because they look for payments under the counter. They will tell the tenants to go the community welfare officer and say he or she is getting the facility for €100, for example, but they will ask for €20 or €30 under the counter when the tenants are accepted and not say anything else about it. We have no mechanism in place for such payments.

The Minister knows as well as I do, in her constituency as much as mine, that there is a tendency for people seeking accommodation to go over the top to try to get better accommodation. It is normal to expect any family to try to look for the best accommodation but unfortunately, there are landlords who will try to be underhand.

There are significant amounts of money involved in rent subsidies and related issues. Some people would suggest that the community welfare officer could investigate such matters but it is impossible for such officers to find time to do so because of the workload they have. The community welfare officers are not even able to cope with what they have. In my area, a community welfare officer has been appointed to deal solely with rent subsidy in order to try to eliminate the backlog on what is there. That is not feasible.

As a first step, the landlord in receipt of the rent subsidy payment should be registered. It would be another box to be ticked on the application form but it would ensure that such landlords come on board, whether they like it or lump it. As a result of the condition of some of the rented accommodation, it will not be possible to rent it to anybody except those who seek rent subsidy. It is necessary to have another box on the application form to ensure the landlord is registered with the Private Residential Tenancies Board and if he or she is not, the payment should not be made. In this regard we would try to improve the facilities for those unfortunate enough to have to seek the subsidy.

The rental accommodation scheme is the way forward as it is clean-cut and does much for the tenant. It is a way around a landlord who is blackguarding many people around the country. I ask the Minister to accept the amendment as it would ensure that we have at least one step forward in getting the rogue landlord, who causes such decimation to family life by getting under-the-counter payments. Such landlords do not put any effort into providing even partially acceptable conditions for those unfortunate enough to have to seek accommodation from them.

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