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

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

For four years the cost of renting a home has spiralled upwards. According to the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, the average rent for a one-bedroom home in Dublin has increased by 24%. That is an extra €2,940 per year. The average increase for a two-bedroom home has been 21%, an extra €3,204 per year. In Cork, the home city of the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Coveney, the increases have been just as steep. The average rent increase for one and two-bedroom properties has been 16%, which is an extra €1,260 per year for a one-bedroom property and €1,680 per year for a two-bedroom property.

The increase in asking prices for new lettings has been even more dramatic. Daft.iehas recorded a 43% hike in new rents between January 2013 and October 2016. New rents throughout the State have risen to more than €1,000 per month, and in Dublin new rents are now more than €1,500 per month. As every Deputy knows, rents are now higher than they were at the peak of the boom. In my constituency of Dublin Mid-West, the asking price for renting an average family home is €1,700 per month. That is more than €20,000 per year.

The cost of renting is out of control and is affecting hundreds of thousands of families. Approximately 750,000 people live in the private rental sector. In Dublin, one in four households rent. Gone are the days when renting was just for students, low income families and first-time buyers who were saving. The private rented sector is where low and middle income workers and those on council housing waiting lists spend very long periods of time. Indeed, low and middle income renting families are now paying between 40% and 60% of their disposable income on rent. Families relying on rent supplement or the housing assistance payment, HAP, are being priced out of the market, while students and single people are being squeezed by out-of-control prices. Crucially, the 200% increase in family homelessness since 2014 is a direct result of the crisis in the rental sector. Tonight, almost 2,500 children will sleep in emergency accommodation. In its recent Oireachtas briefing on family homelessness Focus Ireland said:

A large majority of families becoming homeless had their last secure home in the private rented sector. The main forces making them homeless from this sector were increased rents and landlords evicting to sell the property.

Excessive rents are not just making families homeless. Families are now trapped in emergency accommodation for 12 to 24 months because they cannot get back into the private rental market.

This is not an accident. The rent and homelessness crises are not forces of nature. They are the direct result of the actions and inaction of Fine Gael and its coalition partners since 2014. The mealy-mouthed measures introduced in 2014 did nothing to stop the spiralling cost of accommodation. Indeed, for some the so-called rent certainty measures resulted in immediate price hikes. For others, they simply delayed the inevitable. When Sinn Féin introduced rent certainty legislation last June, Fine Gael, eagerly supported by Fianna Fáil, voted it down. That Bill would have saved renting families up to €2,000 a year. There is no doubt that it would have prevented some families from becoming homeless. However, the Minister, Deputy Coveney, and his trusty ally, Deputy Cowen, said "No". Renters would get no immediate relief. They said we were pre-empting the Government's strategy for the private rental sector, that the legislation would scare off investors and that any new measures would have to balance the interests of landlords with those of tenants.

When the Minister, Deputy Coveney, heard that Sinn Féin intended to use its Private Members' time this week to discuss the rental crisis, he expressed disappointment during Question Time. He accused us of playing politics with the issue.

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