John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. It is an issue that has crossed my desk on a number of occasions. As the House is aware we have seen the rental market, particularly in Dublin, increase very significantly for 22 consecutive quarters, with double-digit annual increases for most years. The situation has become unsustainable. Part of the reason we have the private rented sector, as the Minister of State clearly understands, is due to the deficit in social housing. On the other side, we have people living in private rented accommodation who have incomes and who would like to buy, but who, because of the high rents they are paying, will never break that cycle.

As Deputy Casey said, we must recognise the impact Airbnb is having on the rental market, particularly in the Dublin area. There is a certain irony when we think that properties that should be let to families on longer-term lets are being rented to tourists, and that those people who should be staying in them are probably staying in bed and breakfast establishments, hotels and other types of accommodation. It is an issue that needs to be urgently addressed.

The issue of the cost-rental model has been around for some time. The Committee on Housing and Homelessness, which was formed before the Government was formed, has looked at this issue. Just today I reflected on the findings of the committee. It stated: "There appears to be relatively broad consensus on the need for some form of an affordable rent model to provide long-term affordable residential accommodation for low to moderate income key-worker households in urban areas of high demand." We also noted the comments of Professor P.J. Drudy, who recommended that a cost-rental model of housing be established. Threshold and the Irish Council for Social Housing all acknowledged this, and it was clearly laid out in the report. When the programme for Government was adopted, and it was also reflected in Rebuilding Ireland, there was some sense of encouragement that this was a positive step that needed to be developed. We were well aware of the issues around it, in particular the issues concerning off-balance sheet activity, the special purpose vehicle and the piece of research that needed to be done to give effect to what had long been acknowledged as necessary. Action 4.6 of Rebuilding Ireland refers to this and states, "We will introduce a new affordable rental scheme to enhance the capacity of the private rented sector".

The initial timeline for that was the third quarter of 2016. In the action plan status report for 2017, the goal posts moved, delivering the same action but stating the Government had not made the kind of progress it had intended to make, delivering cost-rental will be an important part of the overall solution, etc. We all agree this needs to be done and when Rebuilding Ireland was published, I said that we would support it and that its implementation was key. The Government has not lived up to expectations in the cost-rental sector and has not delivered in the timely fashion we expected.

Rebuilding Ireland is more than 18 months old. We have been encouraging the Government every step of the way to engage in the process. In a recent reply to a parliamentary question, however, the Minister stated:

In terms of broader research and discussions on developing a cost rental model as part of an evolving and more sustainable rental sector in Ireland, I plan to form an Expert Group to examine the issues and provide advice on the most appropriate way forward. I am currently  considering the terms of reference, formation and composition of the Group with a view to establishing it later this quarter.

This should have been done a year ago or more. We are behind the curve. The Government spoke about this in 2015. The Committee on Housing and Homelessness spoke about it in 2016. Rebuilding Ireland spoke of it in 2016. It is in the status report for 2017 and here we are in 2018 about to establish a committee. We all recognise it is a job that needs to be done. We recognise the technical complexities in off-balance sheet development but it is truly important and possible to do. The Government has fallen way off the target line to be effective. We all knew the different projects in Rebuilding Ireland would take different periods but we expected that a group to draw up a clear roadmap for a cost rental sector would have been established much sooner.

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