Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

It was Frederick Douglass who said: "If there is no struggle, there is no progress." It is incredibly relevant for those of us who want to see action to resolve the horror of the housing crisis. We need to build a movement of all those who are affected, that is, renters facing landlords who are hiking up rents and are out of control; people who cannot afford to buy a home; those on the housing lists; and those sleeping on the streets, on couches or in cars. The movement has to demand intervention to break with the logic of the market and to build public homes. If we do not have the struggle, we will not have progress on the housing crisis and we will have more of the same.

The Minister says he will not oppose the measures but everybody knows they will not be implemented. They will pass in the Dáil tonight but will not become law because the Government is not in favour of them. We will get more self-congratulatory press releases and more meaningless plans but no action. That is why the national homeless and housing coalition protest on 7 April is so important. It is an opportunity to get tens of thousands of people out onto the streets and to start a social movement that can force progress on the issue of housing. Work has to begin now, all around the country, to get the numbers out.

The conditions facing renters are hell while those facing landlords and property investors are paradise. These conditions have been created by this Government, in particular by the landlords' party of Fine Gael, and by successive other Governments. It is reflected in renters living in expensive and precarious accommodation that is often of poor quality. In this city in particular, it is reflected in renters paying, according to a recent survey, 55% of average net income in rent, which is almost double the recommended international maximum while property investors make 7% and there has been a doubling of the amount of profit for landlords between 2010 and now.

This has been created by a reliance on the private market. The context of that is a legal framework which clearly favours landlords over tenants, but which this Bill goes some way to address, and a housing crisis which massively shifts the balance of power further in favour of landlords. Crucial in this context is the collapse in public housing. Until the 1970s, almost one in five households lived in affordable public housing but, because of the logic of privatisation over decades and stopping the building of public housing, the figure has been reduced to one in 13 households and home ownership has dropped to its lowest level since 1971 in the absence of a legal framework where the rights of tenants are protected. It is a consequence of this and previous Governments' policies which relied on the market. The key intervention and the only answer is to build public housing on a massive scale.

We support what is outlined in the Bill as it represents a modest but important increase in the rights of tenants and a shift from landlords to tenants. We would like longer notice periods for tenants who are present for a year or more and a series of other changes, including making indefinite tenancies the norm, ruling out the sale of property as a ground for terminating a tenancy and providing a requirement for a relocation allowance where a tenancy is terminated because a landlord requires a property for their own or a relative's occupation. Crucially, we need to have a referendum to create a constitutional right to housing.

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