Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

The amount of €17,448 is the current cost per year of renting an average family home in Dublin city. Outside this city in the rest of the State, the average cost of renting per year is €8,772. A middle income working family paying this level of rent simply would not be able to afford to save for a deposit to purchase a home. A low income working family paying this level of rent would spend as much as 60% of their disposable income on their monthly rent. A family on rent supplement could pay up to €900 per month from an income of less than €1,800. A family on €188 per week jobseeker's allowance in receipt of the housing assistance payment could pay up to €500 a month.

According to theDaft.ierental report published two months ago, rents have risen on average across the State by 9% in the past 12 months. According to the Private Residential Tenancies Board report published last week, in parts of Galway, Kildare, Meath and Laois, the increase has been between 15% and 19%. In almost every single part of the country rents are spiralling out of control and this is happening at a time when inflation in the economy is virtually at 0%.

The consequences of these rent rises are not trivial. Parents are having to decide between paying rent and paying for other essential household items. In some cases, families are being made homeless because of inability to pay rents or to secure rental accommodation. Out of control rents are having a crushing financial impact on some of the State's poorest households and thousands of children are affected, spending up to two years in some instances in emergency accommodation or living in households with ever deeper levels of income poverty. The scale of this crisis cannot be underestimated and, in Sinn Féin's view, the time for action is now.

We know the causes of the crisis in the private rental sector. For decades, successive Governments have failed to build real social housing. Families who should have been living in council housing were forced into the private rental sector. This pushed up the price of rents for all. Successive Governments also failed to ensure an adequate supply of student accommodation and affordable homes for first-time buyers. Again, tens of thousands of households were forced into the private rental sector, which pushed up rents. An ever-increasing number of home evictions are adding another layer to the housing crisis. As many as 150,000 households are living in the private rental sector when they should be living elsewhere in our housing system. In our view, this is a damning indictment of Government failure on a massive scale.

The Dáil Committee on Housing and Homelessness will report this Friday. It will lay out detailed recommendations on how to address the structural causes of our housing crisis. Hopefully, the Minister, Deputy Coveney, will include all our recommendations in his action plan on housing due later this summer. Many of the recommendations will take some time to implement but in the immediate term measures must be taken to stem the flow of families into homelessness and to relieve the pressure on hard-pressed renting families.

In Sinn Féin's view, rent certainty is key to this. This Bill is very simple in its objective. It seeks to link rent reviews to the consumer price index. It is not rent control. It is not arbitrary. It is in the common good and it is based on principles of social justice. I do not believe there is any constitutional impediment to this measure. The Bill seeks to ensure stability for renters and for landlords. It would prevent volatile shocks in the rental market. If the previous Government had introduced this measure earlier in its term, score of families who are now homeless would still be in their private rented accommodation. Instead, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, blocked the then Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, from introducing this measure and matters have got much worse.

In drafting this Bill, I have kept it as simple as possible. It seeks simply to link rent reviews to the consumer price index. Some Deputies may argue that there is a better index to which to link rents. Others may want to see a time limit or periodic reviews built into rent certainty measures and others may want to see reference rents accompanying rent certainty. I and my colleagues on this side of the House are open to persuasion on all of these issues. I would say to those Deputies that if this is what they want, let this Bill pass Second Stage and propose amendments when we come to deal with Committee Stage.

I listened carefully to An Taoiseach earlier today during Leaders' Questions. He said Fine Gael would not support the Bill as it was pre-empting the report of the Dáil Committee on Housing and Homelessness and the Minister, Deputy Coveney's action plan on housing. He did not have the same problem with his colleagues announcing a €200 million local infrastructure housing fund today despite the fact that it is an issue also under consideration in the report of the Committee on Housing and Homelessness to be launched on Friday. An Taoiseach said Sinn Féin's refusal to agree to an adjournment of the debate tonight was playing politics. Let me say very clearly in this House tonight that I doubt the thousands of families struggling with out of control rents would agree.

I also read with interest Deputy Cowen's comments in the media this afternoon. He accused Sinn Féin of trying to gazump and undermine the work of the Dail Committee on Housing and Homelessness. He described our moving of this Bill as "gutter politics". If the Deputy was in the Chamber, I would ask him directly if he really meant to use the term "gutter politics" on such an important issue. Yet like An Taoiseach, Deputy Kenny, Fianna Fáil has a Private Members' motion on housing in the Seanad tomorrow, which makes five specific recommendations, all of which are also matters under consideration by the Committee on Housing and Homelessness. There is no talk of gazumping or undermining the committee there.

During statements on housing in the Dáil last March, Deputy Cowen called for the introduction of rent certainty. Only last Sunday on "The Week in Politics" his colleague, Deputy Sean Fleming, said that "linking rent to inflation needs to happen straight away" to keep families in their homes. Fianna Fáil's refusal to support this Bill is genuinely hard to understand and deeply disappointing. I suspect what is happening here is that Fine Gael remains opposed to rent certainty. Fianna Fail, as part of its agreement with the Government is helping it avoid any embarrassment. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are asking us to wait. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, on "Drivetime" this evening suggested that we may return to this issue in the autumn.

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