Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is worse than I thought. Let me make another point. Let us say I am a current tenant and I get a rent review on 1 January and the rent is increased by 4% so me and my family decide to vacate the premises on 1 February. Under the Minister's formula, the landlord can increase the rent by another 4% one month later. It is ridiculous. The Minister has said that he is trying to protect existing tenants in terms of the fact that the rent can only be reviewed once a year. What about the thousands of tenants who will be seeking accommodation? That happens every day of the week, in terms of the roll-over of stock.

This is a major faux pasin terms of this amendment. The Minister needs to do the right thing here. There is no point going into the late hours of the night on this. The Minister needs to withdraw this amendment, go away and think about it. We understand that this was done under pressure but the unintended consequences of this are serious. There is no doubt that this will incentivise landlords to push out their tenants because by doing that, under the Minister's formula which was signed off by Fianna Fáil, they are allowed to increase the rent by 4% every time there is a new tenant. It is ridiculous and does not make any sense. I do not believe that was the Minister's intention on this issue but Deputy Ó Broin has identified a major flaw in the amendment. The efforts to correct it were rushed and I know we are up against it, in terms of Committee and Report Stages but this cannot go through the way it is. It makes no sense that the Minister would allow this to go through.

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