Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this Bill because anything that strengthens tenants' rights is welcome and progressive. The rental market in Ireland is a racket. It is a racket where some unscrupulous landlords make fast profits and the Government has created the conditions for this. We can argue about the housing, rent and homelessness crisis but the Government has created the conditions for those. It has passed tax laws and given generous tax breaks to corporate landlords, who buy cheap and rent high. A REIT company bought a lot of apartments cheaply after the crash and rents them for very high prices. The rental market in Dublin is spiralling out of control and rents are 18% higher now than in 2007.

I hear horror stories on a daily basis, one of which I raised with the Minister's predecessor. Landlords are now asking for people on homeless HAP as they do not want ordinary HAP any more. With homeless HAP they get 20% more, up to €1,900 for a two or three-bedroomed house. This is absolutely outrageous. How can people afford that? These landlords should be wearing balaclavas because they are robbing people, including the Government. Until we challenge a system where people are left to the private market we will continue to have this social disaster. The Minister will utter platitudes to the effect that he will try to implement these measures but this is ideologically driven by the Minister's party. It is no coincidence that one fifth of Deputies are landlords. What does that say? It says that the Government has a vested interest in landlordism. When we got rid of the British in 1922, there were Irish landlords who were even more unscrupulous than the British and that is what we have today. We will continue to have the problem until the Government starts to challenge the system.

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