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

I support many aspects of the Bill. A key provision is on the significant problem of deposit retention whereby landlords refuse to return deposits to tenants. It is very welcome that we should strengthen the law in this area to ensure landlords do not abuse tenants in this way. The biggest category of cases brought to the attention of the Private Residential Tenancies Board is deposit retention and this indicates a real problem. This is not to say all landlords are of the 19th century variety but sadly quite a few of them are. Anything which gives us stricter regulation in this area and safeguards the rights of tenants and their entitlement to get back their deposit is very much to be welcomed.

On the issue of the non-payment of rent, obviously people should pay their rent and it is reasonable that landlords should expect rent to be paid. However, I am aware that a number of housing organisations believe people are in rent difficulties for all types of reasons, particularly in the current economic climate. I agree with this view as it has certainly been my experience in dealing with the many people coming to my clinic and I am sure other Deputies have the same experience. It is clear the difficult situation we are in is putting families in great difficulty with regard to paying rent. Many families are forced to make terrible choices between putting food on the table, paying electricity bills or paying the rent. We must have a regime which is humane in this regard and takes into account situations where people, for genuine reasons, fall into arrears. I do not know exactly what is the answer but these issues must be taken into account. We must assist people who are in difficulty and not take a hard line. I am a little concerned about this area and I understand groups such as Threshold and others are also concerned. When disputes arise about tenancies - a significant number of such cases are on my desk at present - while a hearing is awaited rent builds up and this can be a real difficulty.

Several times I and others have raised an issue which contributes to the extreme difficulty for many tenants, namely, the reduction in rent caps for rent allowance. The Government does not seem to acknowledge it has got this wrong and that the rent caps applied are simply not appropriate in many parts of the country. Particular categories seem to be hit very hard in this regard such as single people in Dublin, particularly in south Dublin but I suspect in the centre of Dublin also. It is possible to obtain private rented accommodation in parts of Dublin within the rent cap and obtain rent allowance, but in many places it is impossible. I am not exaggerating, and perhaps the Minister of State knows this. Week in week out people come to my clinic in tears fearing that because of reductions in the rent caps and the refusal of landlords to reduce rent they face eviction and will find it impossible to find somewhere else to rent in the vicinity.

Consequently, families - most often with young children - are faced with the prospect of entering the emergency homelessness system, which is awful. Something must be done about this because the situation is dire and getting worse.

In order to resolve this matter, quite a number of people are - sometimes with the tacit suggestion of community welfare officers - making arrangements with landlords to under declare the amount of rent that is being charged. They are getting rent allowance on the basis that it might be €925, but in fact the rent is €1,000 or €1,100 so they have to make up the difference. People are getting into extreme difficulty as a result. Further down the road, people are simply unable to pay the rent, so they find themselves in arrears. In that scenario pressure is put on them over non-payment of arrears, whereas it is not the tenant's fault but the fault of the Government and the inappropriateness and unfairness of rent cap reductions.

I can think of quite a few cases that are currently in that category. I know of one such case, although I will not name where it is. It is not even in my constituency, but slightly outside it. There is a terrible situation both for the landlord and the tenant, which has resulted directly from the reduction in rent caps. There is now a bitter dispute going on between the tenant and the landlord. The latter feels they are owed a lot of money going back several months. They are calculating the rent owed based on the original rent, whereas the tenant is saying, "All I can pay is the rent cap based on what I am getting in rent allowance and my ability to top that up. I can't pay the extra". Meanwhile, the landlord is claiming the tenant owes €5,000 or €6,000 while the tenant is says it is about €2,000. I will not say there have been pitched battles on the doorstep, but something akin to that. It is a nasty situation and both parties are somewhat innocent in this. That is because they are both victims of a situation that is essentially being created by the rent cap.

There must be real sensitivity, flexibility and awareness that people are often in rent arrears through no fault of their own or in some cases as a direct result of Government policies in this respect. I do not have the figures, although the Minister of State probably does, but I have plenty of anecdotal evidence that rent arrears have risen dramatically since the recession kicked in and austerity was imposed. It is completely understandable why that would be the case. The dire economic situation in which we find ourselves results directly in significant rent arrears for many families. We should not deal harshly with them because of arrears that are out of their control and arise from an economic situation that is not of their making.

I appeal to the Government to examine the rent cap issue in terms of rent allowances. It should be more area specific in that regard, although they may be appropriate. When I raised the issue previously with the Minister, she said many people have managed to get their landlords to reduce the rent. It is clear that while that is possible in some areas, it is not so in other areas. Rents are rising in parts of Dublin, so landlords are asking why should they bother reducing the rent when they can get somebody else to rent it at a higher rate. Ultimately, it will cost the State money if people have to go through the emergency housing system. That situation has to be examined.

The answer to many of these problems is the provision of social housing. The differential rent scheme takes into account people's various incomes depending on whether they are working or have lost income. Nonetheless, it is worrying that the Government and local authorities seem unclear as to whether the significant cost of the property tax will be loaded on top of council rents, particularly where council rent arrears have also grown significantly in recent years. The idea that a significant increase in council rents will result from the imposition of the property tax could put many people in serious difficulty. I call on the Government not to do that and urge it to avoid putting even more families into a difficult situation.

As many housing organisations say, the ultimate solution to many of these problems is to provide a greater stock of social housing. That can be done either through an acceleration of the slow process of identifying properties in NAMA's control for social housing or through direct build, which is still required particularly in Dublin and some other urban centres. It is clear that in such centres we will soon have a housing shortage, notwithstanding the excess of housing in other parts of the country. The identification of social housing units by NAMA has been pitifully slow. It is difficult to get to the bottom of this, but I do not understand why so few houses are being identified by NAMA as suitable for social housing. I suspect it is happening because NAMA's mandate is to recover as much money as it possibly can. With rents beginning to rise in cities, NAMA probably figures it can get a higher return by renting those properties in the private market rather than giving them over to local authorities. It may even be sitting on properties in the hope that property prices will bounce back in the near future, although that is a forlorn hope. NAMA may also think it will sell off a lot of the properties and can thus get a bigger cash return quickly from them. Whatever the reasons, however, if we continue along the current road we are unlikely to get a significant dividend in terms of social and affordable housing from the NAMA properties unless the Government takes serious action to transfer some of that housing over.

While I will not rehearse at length the economic argument, it has been stated repeatedly in this House that it would make financial and economic sense for the State and the Government to provide more social housing directly, either through acquiring NAMA properties or through the direct building of social housing. Whatever the initial capital costs might be, the Government would make huge savings on rent allowance payments that are going to landlords at present and this measure would draw rental revenue back into the State. This would mean, for example, that were we to set out with a housing programme to house the 100,000 families who currently are on the housing list within a reasonable period of five years, such a scheme could have paid for itself by the end of that five-year period. Beyond that, such a plan would generate additional revenue for the State or for the local authorities. I do not understand the reason the Government will not do this and the only excuse provided by the Government is that it lacks the initial capital. However, the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, has money. What is that agency doing with its money? I attend the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and reform-----

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