Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I never thought I would find myself agreeing with Deputy Micheál Martin about anything but I agree with him that it is freezing in here:

I wish to quote from Article 43 of the Constitution of this country.

1 1° The State acknowledges that man [not woman], in virtue of his [not her] rational being, has the natural right, antecedent to positive law, to the private ownership of external goods.2° The State accordingly guarantees to pass no law attempting to abolish the right of private ownership or the general right to transfer, bequeath, and inherit property.2 1° The State recognises, however, that the exercise of the rights mentioned in the foregoing provisions of this Article ought, in civil society, to be regulated by the principles of social justice.2° The State, accordingly, may as occasion requires delimit by law the exercise of the said rights with a view to reconciling their exercise with the exigencies of the common good.

This article has been thrown at all of us, whether during our time working on local authorities or as Members of this House, as a reason the State could not introduce rent controls, that rent controls were repugnant to the Constitution and that one would leave oneself liable to constitutional challenge that the State could not afford.

Like everybody else, I woke up on Monday morning and heard the great announcement that the Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, was to introduce a form of rent control. I note that Mr. Coveney, or Minister Coveney - I got told off yesterday for not being polite - said in The Journalin October that capping rents will not fix the problem. A headline in the Irish Examinerin November read "Simon Coveney rejects rent controls". Today, the ERSI said it is not particularly enthusiastic about the matter. I also note that the Minister has quoted the ERSI ad nauseamat us in making the argument that landlords might exit the market if we introduce further rent controls.

This is not an exchange, but I ask the Minister to refer back to me and tell me from where he got this sudden wonderful enlightenment. Why, after the past five years of soaring rents in this country, when it was suggested and argued many times that we need rent controls, were they not implemented before? Why now, all of a sudden, in December 2016? This is a genuine question. I would like him to answer me how all of a sudden we can do it when he has allowed tens of thousands of families to be made homeless? They have had to leave this State and emigrate. Some of them have even been driven to the point of taking their own lives because of the desperation of not being able to afford a home for their families over the past four years. This is a terrible legacy for any Government or party to have on its hands. I argue very strongly that it is a legacy of the previous Government, the current Government and, previously, Fianna Fáil when it wound down the building and provision of social housing and allowed market rule to drive up the cost of rent and housing in this State.

I argue further that so far, all of the media attention and political focus on the Bill, which the Minister introduced some time ago minus the rent controls, has been on his introduction of some form of rent control. I argue that this masks and distracts from one of the biggest attacks in the history of the State on the democratic planning process. Never in the history of the State have we seen such a monumental attack on the planning process, the transparency of that process and the participation of locally elected councillors in it. This is all being railroaded in the Bill with which we will deal all night and possibly most of the day tomorrow.

The Minister has done this in a very shoddy way. It undermines the validity of introducing any form of rent control, but specifically the form of rent control he proposes to introduce. This side of the House has made eloquent and intelligent arguments covering a range of issues. I was just saying to Deputy Boyd Barrett that I recognise that we, the left in this House, probably drive the Minister and Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael mad because we are articulate, intelligent and have alternatives to the market while they are forced to sit here and listen to them. If we were not here, they would have matters sewn up and signed off and they would all be gone home or off to party. However, that we are here in strength and challenge them with real, sensible alternatives to the market madness to which they adhere and which they keep telling us is the only game in town must drive them mad altogether.

I read an article last weekend which I think was published on Saturday in The New York Times. I would recommend it to anyone. Its title was "Wall Street Is Europe's Landlord". It set out to show how the biggest players in Wall Street - Goldman Sachs, Cerberus, Lone Star and Hibernia - have bought up 80% of the distressed properties in Europe, quite a chunk of which are in Ireland. American investment funds have bought up €233 billion worth of property. Not only that, they have also entered not only this State, but also Spain, where they have been given tax breaks and a series of loopholes and scams that allow them to enhance their profits even further. We have repeatedly argued that the taxes which we have allowed them to avoid, had they been collected could have helped to build the stock of social housing so badly needed in this country.

To look at who is involved in the market in this country, I-RES REIT now owns 2,500 apartments, and Green REIT has dividends of up to 188% and a net profit of €145 million in this country. Now we find that Kennedy Wilson is buying up a huge range of apartments across the city. We also find, interestingly, that the other measures in the Bill, to which we will come tomorrow, which have thrown the whole nine yards open for the developers to do lán abhaile what they like with planning, building and development. It will see them get land for free and services supplied for free.

Some interesting characters are getting in on the act. He who shall not be named - did someone say Denis O'Brien? - is involved a major development that is being proposed in Dublin 8. It is clear that we are opening it up for the rich to get richer at the expense of the vast majority of ordinary people in this country, who are really suffering.

It is interesting to sit here and watch the behaviour of the Deputies on the other side of the House. It just so happens that two Ministers are called Simon. I wonder whether the two Simons ever talk to each other.

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