Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

Yes. The first is to section 18(1), to delete “, for the duration of the relevant period,”. We are proposing the amendment because we do not believe it should end in four years. There should not be a guillotine.

Amendment No. 7 to amendment No. 47 seeks to delete subsection 3 of section 18. The Taoiseach and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, promised that there would be no rush by landlords to increase rents in the last few weeks before they knew the Bill was being brought forward and that, therefore, the Government would make this provision retroactive to prevent that from happening. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, said in an interview in Breaking News: “Alan Kelly will be able to do these things under law [to stop this happening, but the alert was given weeks back that rents were to be increased in the run-up to the Bill] ... He will be able to make legal arrangements to prevent (that practice from) happening." Now we have to insert amendments to get the Government to do what it stated it would do.

The rent increases forced on tenants in recent weeks have been well publicised by several high profile journalists. I met two women in an apartment block whose landlord had sent a letter to the 15 apartments in the block stating rents would be increased by 20%. This letter was dropped in last week and was obviously to bypass this law. The way to take that load and burden off people is to make the Bill retrospective. Homelessness charities and others stated landlords could increase rents immediately. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, told Galway Bay FM that that would not be a problem, that people had rent reviews on a certain date and that landlords could not choose to gazump them. He talked about people going to the PRTB.

However, this has happened and through this amendment, Deputies Paul Murphy, Higgins and I are asking the Minister of State to deal with it by not having the law come into effect the day after but to backdate it.

As for the other amendments my colleagues and I tabled pertaining to Seanad amendment No. 48, it is explicitly stated that the provisions in Seanad amendment No. 48 will not be retrospective and that any increases or evictions already notified under the old rules will stand. Consequently, in amendment No. 5 to Seanad amendment No. 48, it is proposed "In section 19, to delete subsection (2)", that is, to delete the clause specifying that rent increases notified before the Act comes into force are valid under the old notice period. The Minister of State could do this to prevent the kind of gazumping that has happened in respect of people's rents recently.

Another amendment my colleagues and I have tabled in respect of Seanad amendment No. 48 is to extend the notice period from 90 days, which is not much time for people to find alternative accommodation, to a period of 180 days. This is to allow people to remain in the home and find alternative accommodation. All Members are aware of families that have been economically evicted and a key deficit in this Bill is that although it is for this reason that most people now are becoming homeless, the Government is not really dealing with it because obviously it must be bowing the knee to the landlords in this regard.

The other amendment my colleagues and I have tabled to Seanad amendment No. 48 proposes that rent increases would be allowed only if the resulting rent would not be greater than the rent charged on the dwelling whenever rents were lowest since the onset of the recession. The reason for this provision is that even if rent certainty, as the Minister of State calls it, is introduced, it will not bring down rents and they must be brought down now. Real rent controls must be introduced that allow people to live a decent life. Rents of €1,400 and €1,500 are being demanded in many housing estates in my constituency. The Government suggests people in such circumstances can save, for example, for a deposit for a house but it is impossible to so do when one is paying such massive rents. Consequently, in amendment No. 3 to Seanad amendment No. 48, my colleagues and I have proposed, in section 19(1)(b), the deletion of paragraph (c) and its substitution with the following:

[to]include a statement by the landlord that in his or her opinion the new rent is not greater than for a dwelling in the Dublin area (as defined by the Private Residential Tenancies Board Rent Index) the rent charged on the dwelling in Quarter 1 2011 [the reason for this is that is when rents became somewhat realistic after the crash], or for a dwelling outside the Dublin area (as defined by the [PRTB]) the rent charged on the dwelling in Quarter 2 2013, with the addition in either case of allowance for the general rate of inflation according to the Consumer Price Index

and it goes on. The point is these are not really the most comprehensive of amendments because Members have been forced to amend whatever came from the Seanad rather than providing for comprehensive rent controls in the manner they would wish.

The other amendment I will mention is brief - I believe it is amendment No. 2 and think it also is listed in this group at the outset. It is just a question and perhaps the Minister of State might clarify. I will explain the reason my colleagues and I tabled this simple amendment which is to delete "being" qualified for social housing support and instead to insert "having" qualified for social housing support. The query in this regard is that voluntary housing tenants are now to be put under the protection of the private rented sector. In some cases, I believe this will give them greater protection, but my colleagues and I were afraid this clause would be used to make people in the voluntary housing sector not qualify for social housing if their income, for example, rose above a certain level. Consequently, the purpose of this amendment is to give people greater protection. For example, if a council tenant's income rises, he or she still is considered eligible to remain in his or her home. The danger of the wording, "being", is that people would no longer be considered eligible to be in voluntary co-operative housing tenancies, assisted housing bodies etc. It was more to clarify this point, as we consider this wording to be better and would give people more support.

Unfortunately, Members are being obliged to rush through many items here and to deal with them in one go. As stated, it is somewhat unfortunate the Government did not introduce many measures, but Members will come to the issue of evictions in the debate on Seanad amendments Nos. 50 and 51.

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