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

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this. I will start at the point at which Deputy Darragh O'Brien concluded. There have been a number of these Bills in this House. It is frustrating from the Opposition point of view because of the time and delivery. There has to be a mechanism to identify the key points in any of these Bills and have them delivered because they have the potential to have a significant impact. I recognise that the Minister has left to review the monthly figures.

I make the point in the observation, as Deputy Jan O'Sullivan did in her opening comments, that there are probably in the region of 10,000 homeless people. I remind the Government that the first action in Rebuilding Ireland was to provide rapid build housing solutions to address this group of people in particular. That has been a spectacular failure. At the end of the year, something like 200 units were built out of an estimated target of 1,000. The Government's own estimate would be less than 500 by the end of 2018. This is having a significant negative impact on this group of 10,000 people who are homeless.

Many of the issues relating to rent, residential tenancies and the high rents being charged are a result of supply and demand. Many people who are in private rented accommodation do not want to be there. They are applicants, people on social housing lists and people who ordinarily might want to buy their own house, and no properties are available. Everybody is being squeezed into what is now a very tight market. Until the Government significantly increases supply, this problem will persist.

In one regard, we are tinkering at the edges. We are not solving it, even bringing in rent controls and such. Until we get to a stage where we have adequate supply in the market, we are not dealing with the fundamental issue. We are bringing in somewhat temporary solutions. I remind the Government that enabling funding for infrastructure was first announced in this House by the then Minister, Deputy Noonan, in October 2016 when he was doing the budget. He announced €50 million. Virtually none of it has been drawn down. That money has to be drawn down and spent to provide the enabling infrastructure to develop the housing projects. On this side of the House, one can sometimes feel the frustration and concern that the projects are not moving at a quick enough pace.

We have seen the rents and rate of increase over the past five or six years. They are unsustainable for people in the short term and for long-term residents, even with the rent pressure zones.

They are consuming too much of a person's disposable income, especially in the greater Dublin area. The situation will not change until we radically address the supply side. The Government does not make it easy. The Minister and the Taoiseach previously said there would be 3,800 social houses and they talk about all the other housing solutions but it is difficult to get clarity and detail as they will not name the schemes that make up the promised 3,800 houses. It is a cloak and dagger situation. The Government is hiding behind big numbers without providing the detail we deserve.

I wish to make some observations on the Bill, most of which we support. There are concerns about the legality of having a national rent pressure zone but those issues could be addressed on Committee Stage. People who are paying significant rents are entitled to a good standard of accommodation. In my view the Government is negligent in that regard. Tenants are not being adequately looked after. There should be a greater regime of inspections. Last year we saw an RTÉ documentary which showed some of the conditions in which people live. I tabled parliamentary questions to probe the issue and discovered the Government is providing €2.5 million in 2018 to local authorities to provide inspections. Incrementally, the Government will increase it to €10 million by 2021, which would imply a one-in-four rate of inspection. I do not see why we should have to endure such a delay before getting to that level of inspection. There should be a reasonable prospect that properties would be inspected on a regular basis. I do not mean a couple of times a year, but every four or five years, to ensure compliance. I do not know why the Government is taking so long to do that given that only a relatively small amount of money is required.

In terms of security of tenure and the type of leases we have, it always struck me that if a landlord was renting a commercial property different rules would apply. If the term of lease was five years it would mean five years and one would sell the property with the sitting tenant. I fail to understand why we do not look at the matter in a more substantial way instead of tinkering around the edges. When landlords give a lease for three or five years, regardless of whether there is an incentive, that must mean five years. That happens every day with commercial property without any problems.

We have an anomaly on the residential side in that the landlord pays the local property tax but if it were a commercial property the tenant would pay the rates. We should try to have a parallel system so that the conditions that apply to commercial properties would work to the same advantage of a tenant in a residential property. That is not happening and I fail to see why that is the case.

In some cases I have seen, the behaviour and actions of receivers appointed by banks have been appalling. They have moved in a reckless way both in regard to tenants and the previous owner of the property. Properties were cleared out and left vacant for many years at a time of housing crisis before being eventually sold. In some cases former tenants became squatters and property ended up in a poor condition. The receivers did not serve anyone well. Apart from the Labour Party proposal, I suggest that the operation of receivers and their agents must be regulated. In my experience current regulation is either poor or non-existent.

Extending the legislation in terms of the notice to quit on the basis of requiring the property for family members and the grounds for same is a partial approach. If we have professional landlords, whether they are the big institutional landlords, to whom the Minister referred, or single owners, the rules that apply to the commercial property sector should apply in residential property. That would bring a lot more stability to the market where longer term leases of three, five or ten years would become the norm, with the annual rate of increase, whatever that might be. That would be much more beneficial than putting in conditions on the reasons for sale. The lease should mean the lease and it should be the norm to sell rented properties with the tenants in situ.

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