Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Every weekend I meet families whose deadlines for eviction are in a few weeks or few months time. For some it was the end of January, now it is the end of February or the end of March, April, May and so on. Many of these families facing eviction have children some of whom are up to the late teens. Some mothers and fathers bring these children with them to my information clinics. It is sad and appalling to see the distress in the faces of these children as the family faces eviction, homelessness and grave uncertainty. Even simple tasks such as storing food or getting to school or work become a nightmare when a family is in accommodation for the homeless. In many of the cases I represent, landlords give the usual excuses of requiring a house or apartment back for a relative or for themselves. However, after the eviction, the properties are often immediately let out again for from €1,300 to €1,500 or €1,600 a month, way above Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council rent supplement rates. Increasingly, landlords simply say they want to maximise rents and that rent supplement rates are far too low.

The Minister of State is eight months in office and this is all still happening. The social housing strategy 2020 is still just aspirational talk, task forces and meetings. Rent supplement accommodation has long dried up, with rents in Dublin Bay North and other urban constituencies now soaring 30% above 2012 levels and almost back close to Celtic tiger levels. For example, for quarter three of 2014, daft.ieput rent for a three bedroom house in Dublin 3 at €1,655 a month, in Dublin 5 at €1,418 a month, in Dublin 13 at €1,352 a month and in Dublin 17 at €1,275 a month. On the Minister of State's watch, we still have 20,000 families and citizens seeking accommodation in this city and some 89,000 seeking accommodation nationally. We have 359 homeless families and 780 children in hostel, guest house or hotel accommodation in Dublin on this day. The Minister and Minister of State are personally responsible for the suffering of these people.

It was always grossly unfair of the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, to use rent supplement limits as a crude and useless form of rent regulation. In response to parliamentary questions I put today regarding rent regulation, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Kelly, said he is monitoring the rental market very closely. He also referred to the Private Rental Tenancies Board's "Do You Know" campaign through which tenants who are anxious that rent increases in excess of market rents are being charged should contact the PRTB. What will they gain by that? This is a feeble and useless response on the part of the Ministers.

Last week, Senator Aideen Hayden held a very informative briefing on what she called the "third generation" model of rent regulation and on how rent regulation works in Europe. There, rent regulation offers security of tenure to tenant and landlord and increases, or decreases, are fair and usually linked to the consumer price index. I learned from that briefing that the report of the Constitution review group of 1996, the report of the commission on the private rented residential sector of 2000, the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution ninth report of 2004 and the DKM Economic Consultants report, Rent Stability in the Private Rented Sector 2014, which the Minister of State has on his desk, all agree that the form of rent control sanctioned by the Rent Restrictions Acts 1946-1967 was unconstitutional but that fair and proportionate rent control is not unconstitutional. I understand the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 is to be amended and I believe we clearly need some form of rent regulation included in that Act. I have no problem in regard to amending the Constitution so that the rights of property are amended to ensure the kind of savage rents being imposed on vulnerable families in Dublin and other cities are unacceptable and not allowed to happen.

In countries such as Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark - most of our EU partners - rents are linked to the cost of living and all these countries have reasonably healthy rental markets. It is clear that the greedy madness which enveloped Dublin rental markets in the mid-noughties, which is again threatening our society, would not be tolerated by any of our EU partners. I urge the Minister of State and the Minister to sit down together and to bring forward serious proposals in regard to the regulation of rent in this country.

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