Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

An aspect of this Bill that has not yet been mentioned in this debate is the requirement to take "reasonable measures" to "maintain the dwelling fit for human habitation during the refurbishment or renovation". I have raised the issues being encountered by the Leeside residents in Cork on a number of occasions in this House. The apartment building in which they live was purchased by the Lucas Capital vulture fund last year. It is very clear that the vulture fund's agenda is to increase significantly the rents these residents are paying to live in their homes. It is possible that they will be almost doubled. The renovation work that was done on this building in recent weeks and months, while the residents continued to live there, turned the apartment complex into a building site. Families with young children had to put up with masonry dust all over the place and the fierce smell of the varnish on the walls. As a result of skylights being left open at night, puddles formed in the corridors when it rained heavily. The use of drills and kango hammers caused a tremendous amount of noise. Almost half of the parking spaces used by residents were taken from them to facilitate the work being done by construction workers. It was clear that the agenda of the landlord was to drive the tenants out, even before an attempt was made to drive them out by doubling their rents. I assure Lucas Capital and its representatives that every time they try to inflict their dirty tricks on the Leeside residents, we will call them out on the floor of the Dáil. We support the proposal in this Bill that "reasonable measures" must be taken to "maintain the dwelling fit for human habitation during the refurbishment or renovation".

I note that the Minister has left the debate early to return to his Department to sign off this evening on the State's homelessness statistics for April. It is a pity that those figures were not provided a couple of hours ago so that they could be a feature of this debate. Instead, they will have to be debated in the media tonight and on the floor of the Chamber tomorrow. As the number of homeless people approached the 10,000 mark at the end of March, the Minister did not respond by announcing rent controls, plans for the construction of more public housing or a ban on economic evictions. Instead of making such announcements, he fiddled the March homelessness figures with breath-taking cynicism to keep the number of homeless people below the 10,000 level. We will see the figures for April when they are released later this evening. They will be debated in due course.

More than 800,000 people, or approximately 20% of the population of the State, are living in rented accommodation. This figure has doubled in the last decade. Action urgently needs to be taken to ensure the provision of high-quality, affordable and secure housing in the rental sector. Solidarity supports the limited proposals that are made in this Bill to that end. We support the proposal to limit rent deposits to one month's rent, the removal of the sale of a property as a ground for termination of a tenancy and the disclosure on a published register of the rent payable on dwellings. While we are prepared to vote in favour of the Bill at this Stage, if the Bill progresses we will bring forward amendments to it at a later Stage. For example, we will propose an amendment to remove the provision that allows a tenancy to be terminated because a family member is seeking to take up residence. We will also introduce a proposal that would reduce rents to affordable levels.

The proposal in the Bill to allow rent increases in line with the consumer price index is wholly inadequate. According to a recent Sherry FitzGerald survey, renters in Ireland are now paying a huge proportion of their net incomes on rent. The survey found that renters in Dublin are paying an average of 55% of their net income on rent. That is higher than the figure for London, Paris, San Francisco or any of the other cities in the world that were surveyed. The figure for Cork is 37%, which is also very high. That renters in Ireland face such a crushing financial burden is the inevitable outcome of the adherence of successive Governments to pro-landlord market-based responses that have failed time and again. Successive Governments have poured increasing amounts of public money into the pockets of landlords, some of whom are in this Chamber. No one should have to pay more than 20% to 25% of their net income on their housing costs. I suggest that facilitating rent increases based on the consumer price index would merely copperfasten the charging of rents are already unaffordable. We need to take strong action to reduce rents by as much as half, thereby returning them to affordable levels. If this Bill progresses, Solidarity will introduce amendments to enable a rapid return to affordable rents. In the meantime, we will support the Bill on Second Stage.

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