Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am sure the Minister has had an opportunity to study with his officials yesterday's report by Daft.ieand the economist Ronan Lyons that shows a stunning and extraordinary increase in rents, specifically in big city areas such as Dublin, Cork and Limerick and throughout the country. The average rent has increased by 11.7%. As the Minister knows, that is way out of line with the consumer price index and any construction price index. In fact, it is now cheaper to service a mortgage than it is to rent. A mortgage for a three-bedroom house in Dublin 5 would cost approximately €1,287 per month, whereas the equivalent rent would be €1,500 per month. People's weekends and nights are filled looking for accommodation. Many of them are working. We are not just talking about people in receipt of rent supplement. When they do a deal with a landlord verbally, he or she frequently and increasingly gets back to them on the telephone to state another two or three individuals or couples are offering €200 or €300 more for the accommodation. While there are very many good landlords, it is now apparent that groups of landlords are squeezing unfortunate tenants for as much as they possibly can in the way of rent increases.

It is not enough for the Government to stand idly by. It has been in office for over six months, before which there was a long gestation period. Nothing has been done since the former Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, put in place a structure requiring the holding of rents at a certain level for two years. This is about market failure.

The Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, has very strong capitalist views which he has frequently expressed, but, even according to the theory of capitalism, if there is total market failure, that is a reason for the state to intervene and seek to regulate the market. The only way to regulate the market is to introduce rent certainty, rent control and longer leases, as is done in many other European countries, that is, give tenants an opportunity to have security of tenure, particularly where they have children because children settle into local schools and avail of local services and make friends. The alternative is to continue with the failed Irish model which involves a one or two-year lease, on the expiry of which people must go on the move again. In current circumstances it is genuinely difficult for people to find a rental property in the area in which they have chosen to settle.

I represent Dublin West which has one of the highest proportions of tenants in the State. I am all too familiar with the fact that, as the banks move in and take back more buy-to-let properties, the tenants must find another place to rent. They may have to move to another county and find other schools. The Minister must intervene to regulate this runaway market that is causing so much misery.

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