Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Labour Party will also support the Bill on Second Stage. There are many other measures we would like to have seen in the Bill. The Minister is promising to bring further legislation. One of the major causes of homelessness is people losing their private rental accommodation. Anything that can be done to strengthen the rights of tenants to maintain their tenancy and to control rents should be done. This is one of the big crises of our time. A very large number of individuals and families end up becoming homeless because of difficulties they have in the private rental sector with spiralling rents and notices to quit and move out of their homes. Every opportunity needs to be taken to make the Bill as strong as it possibly can be.

To quote from an unusual source, my contribution will be on what the Minister has done and what he has failed to do. I will start with what he has done. I welcome the strengthening of the powers of the Residential Tenancies Board, particularly the power to initiate investigations without receiving a complaint from tenants. This has been long required and it is welcome. There are issues about which Deputy Ó Broin has spoken on the types of administrative, civil and criminal sanctions dealt with in the legislation.

One of the concerns I have in general with residential tenancies legislation is that it is becoming more and more complex. Threshold has called for complete reform of the legislation rather than adding, cutting and putting in extra pieces. There is an argument for this. In Ireland, whether we like it or not, we still have many accidental landlords and tenants who do not always have the time or energy in the situation they are in to be familiar with the detail of legislation. Ideally, what should be done is to keep things as simple as possible. While I welcome yearly registration, it needs to be kept relatively simple so landlords can register every year in a way that is not too complex for them, perhaps involving filling in something simple online. Perhaps the Minister will come back on this. I know the fees will be reduced but given that there will be yearly registration I wonder whether they should be as high as they will be. This is another question to be raised.

I want to raise a very specific issue in the context of yearly registration. I have had representation from a person in a rent pressure zone who contacted me about the 4% limit. I do not know whether the requirement for yearly registration will address this issue but she maintains some landlords increase the rent by more than 4% in a rent pressure zone even for an existing tenancy.

Reading from her email, she stated that her situation brought her attention to a loophole allowing rents to increase by more than 4% in rent pressure zones within a rental year. Her rent was €1,700. The landlady let this tenant know that she would be increasing the rent, as allowed, by 4% to €1,768 on the first anniversary of the tenancy. That was done precisely three months in advance as the rule is that three months' notice must be given of a rent increase. The tenant was informed that a named letting agent would be in touch on 1 October 2018 with an updated lease and associated paperwork arising from the allowed rent increase.

So far, so in line with the rules. The tenant, in her email, went on to state that toward the end of September she was aware that she had heard nothing from the letting agent. Then, just at the end of the month, she got a call from the agent. The tenant was informed that, in line with her landlord's wishes, the rent would going up in three months to €1,790.67. The tenant let the agent know that the expected rent increase was from 1 October and was to go up by 4% to €1,768. She then took a screenshot of the RPZ calculator showing that her figures were not wrong.

In the circumstances, the landlady did not put up the rent to the amount the letting agent had suggested.

See this speech in context