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

I suspect the tens of thousands of families struggling with excessive rents would disagree. I suspect the families living in emergency accommodation would also disagree. The thousands of people who have signed the Secure Rents Campaign online petition definitely disagree. The reason we have brought forward this Bill is that we are seeking to put pressure on the Minister and his colleagues in Government to include these three modest measures in the rental strategy that is being finalised.

In our view, the best way to stop the spiralling cost of rents is to link rent to an index such as the consumer price index, CPI. The best way to slow down the rate of evictions in the rental sector is to remove sale of property as grounds for issuing a notice to quit. The best way to give tenants greater security of tenure is to make tenancies of indefinite duration the norm. This is not just Sinn Féin’s view. It was also the view of the all-party Committee on Housing and Homelessness. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael members of that committee supported these three measures when the committee finalised and published its report in June. It is also the view of all the parties and Independents who have co-signed this Bill: Independents 4 Change, the Labour Party, People Before Profit, the Anti-Austerity Alliance, the Social Democrats and the Green Party.

The Bill's measures were designed to echo the demands of the Secure Rents Campaign launched earlier this month. Unite, Mandate, SIPTU, the Communications Workers' Union, CWU, IMPACT and the Civil Public & Services Union, CPSU, joined forces with Uplift and the Dublin Tenants Association in a public campaign calling for rent certainty and security of tenure. I welcome representatives from the campaign who are in the Visitors Gallery today. We all share a single purpose. We want the Government to include these three measures in its strategy for the rental sector. We ask that the Minister, Deputy Coveney, introduce an amendment to his Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Bill in the Dáil this month to give effect to these measures. We ask the Government to abandon its spurious opposition to rent certainty and security of tenure. Struggling renters urgently need a break. Rent certainty and security of tenure are good not only for tenants but also for landlords. Action is required now to halt spiralling rents and evictions.

Today Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have a clear choice. Will they join the rest of the Members in supporting the 750,000 people who live in the private rental sector? I sincerely hope so. On that basis I commend the Bill to the House.

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