Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The rental sector can be a precarious place for those who are renting so it is incumbent on local authorities and the Government to ensure that tenants have the greatest possible security of tenure. This is vital so that families and individuals have stability and not just a sense of security, but actual security. Unfortunately, this is something that a lot of tenants currently lack. Rents have reached exorbitant levels in many areas, particularly in the larger cities. Sustained and major increases in the cost of renting will result in more people living in insecure and often overcrowded housing, with some facing the prospect of being made homeless. That is why the Government must link the cost of renting to the CPI as a matter of urgency. It must legislate to regulate the boundaries within which rents can rise and fall. There is no impediment to implementing such legislation. The only objection would be from those who have a vested interest in the way rents are determined now, for whom fairness and security of tenure for tenants for the common good does not matter. Linking rents to the CPI would require a simple change to the Residential Tenancies Act so that landlords would be unable to increase rents by more than the CPI figure in the period between the start of a lease and a new lease being agreed with current or new tenants.

This is already happening in countries like Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the US. The consumer price index is a very useful gauge of inflation in the Irish economy on an annual basis. Tenants are constantly living under the threat of having their houses sold from under them with little or no protections. It is essential for us to provide for a clear definition of why a landlord requires vacancy of a property. We support the Bill that has been introduced by Deputy Jan O'Sullivan and her Labour Party colleagues. Ultimately, the real answer is to increase the supply of social housing and thereby stabilise the market, which is completely and utterly out of control at present.

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