Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In the five years since this Government took office, private residential rents have increased by a staggering 35%. Rents have increased by 10.3% this year. This is not just causing severe hardship but is pushing families and single people into homelessness. It is for this reason that more people are becoming homeless each month. The housing shortage is the reason they stay homeless. Rent costs are the reason they end up being homeless. I have been asked for help by the parents of young children and young single people - both working and unemployed - who were fighting to hold back the tears as they presented me with letters from their landlords informing them of rent increases. Their incomes are down and the standard of their accommodation is low but the price goes up continually because landlords know they can do this. Those to whom I refer are tired of being kicked around and treated like dirt.

The only solution is to regulate the private rented market, thereby controlling rent levels now and into the future in order to ensure fairness. Sinn Féin has long called for such measures. I was pleasantly surprised when the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government said he wanted rent freezes to be put in place. That was 11 months ago, which was already very late in the day but at least it was something. Unfortunately, this has come to nothing and it seems clear that Fine Gael is not willing to concede any ground. It stands by the landlords.

The proposals from the Government that are being floated in the media are nothing short of pathetic. Rent regulation can work if it is properly and strictly implemented across the private rental market. It will do nothing if it is piecemeal and both Fine Gael and the Minister know that. One proposal was to put in place rent certainty on rent supplement tenancies, thereby limiting future increases available to landlords. This would only increase the number of landlords refusing rent supplement tenants and reinforce the two-tier housing system built by Fianna Fáil and continued - with gusto - by this Government. Another proposal was to increase the eviction notice period, which would do little or nothing for tenants who cannot afford their rent as that would be seen as a break in the tenancy agreement. It also fails to recognise that most tenants are not in their homes for such long periods due to the instability of the private market. A few weeks more for the few tenants with tenancies of five years or more who are being evicted does practically nothing. Requiring landlords to justify rent increases based on the market rate is another nonsensical idea and it is really just a rewording of the existing rules, which do nothing but which can be spun to sound like something.

The solution is not just rent certainty across the board to limit future increases but control measures to decrease rents right now. The Private Residential Tenancies Board should be empowered to set local standard rates with a maximum deviation based on the size of the accommodation. These standards could be imposed by existing tenants via a rent review request when one becomes available and new tenancies would be required to meet these standards immediately. Berlin has implemented a similar model with great success and there has already been a decrease of approximately 5% in rents in the city. Rents are too high now. If they were frozen, they would still be too high next year. This is the reality for all tenants in Ireland, especially those in our capital. It is up to the Government to solve this. It is not just about building homes next year. By then, many more families will be homeless, rents will have increased again and the cost of homelessness will have risen also.

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