Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 37:

In page 145, between lines 32 and 33, to insert the following:“Report on income tax relief for individuals in rental accommodation

62. The Minister shall, within 6 months of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before Dáil Éireann a report on an income tax relief equivalent in value to one month’s rent of an individual available to all renters not already in receipt of any State subsidy examining the social and economic impact of this measure in the context of historically high levels of rent for Irish citizens.”

In this Finance Bill landlords have been given accelerated tax breaks with no conditionality at all attached. My amendment to oppose that measure has been ruled out of order. There are serious questions around that and I would look for more detailed explanations of how some of these amendments have been ruled out of order. I could go into that but my time is limited.

What I propose in this amendment is a tax relief equivalent to one month's rent for all renters in the State who are not already supported by the State. This would therefore exclude those receiving a subsidy such as the housing assistance payment, HAP, for example. As I outlined to the Minister in our alternative budget and on Committee Stage, this one month's rent back each year for three years would be accompanied by a rent cap or a rent freeze during that period. The third leg of this stool would be an increase in supply. We argued and advocated for a larger, much-increased capital programme which would see thousands more social, affordable and cost rental houses being built with direct funding from the State.

The great solution to the housing crisis the Minister came up with in budget 2019 was to increase landlord's tax relief on mortgage interest to 100%. Sinn Féin's alternative, as I said, has been rent relief for the renters who are facing the great crisis out there. The problem with the Government's proposal is that it is completely unconditional. There needs to be large amounts of conditionality. It should be ensured that landlords getting this very large tax break are providing affordable rents and security of tenure. This relief provides no incentive to reduce rents in an environment in which supply is still restricted.

Many people out there are put to the pin of their collars and many young people can never aspire to what their parents had before them, which is the simple ability to own one's own family home. That is particularly acute in the more urban areas of Dublin, Cork, Galway and elsewhere but it is also being felt more and more right across rural Ireland. That is a clear example of how we are failing on the issue of housing. The Minister likes to say that we are never returning to boom and bust but that is exactly what is happening here. We went from boom to bust and now we are going to boom again. There is a lack of ability to manage the issue of housing in this State. Government has never got a handle on it.

Rents have risen for the 25th consecutive quarter. Rents have reached an all-time high in each of the last ten quarters. Every single one of those quarters broke new records. Year on year we are seeing inflation of more than 10% and the Government is discussing accelerating tax relief for landlords. We want to see tax relief for renters. We want to see one month back for every person renting in the State for a period of three years. That is what this report calls for. It is about giving real relief to people and introducing a cap so that landlords cannot increase these rents any further. It is about giving breathing space at a time when the Government needs to ramp up the amount of money it is putting into social, affordable and cost rental houses to deal genuinely with the supply issue rather than tinkering around the edges.

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