Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I want to speak in support of amendment No. 13 and the other progressive amendments from the Labour Party and Deputy Broughan in this grouping. Even in the media in recent weeks it is clear that we are seeing an avalanche of evictions. Some of those are threatened in The Exchange Hall in Tallaght in my constituency, an issue I have raised a number of times with the Minister. They are due before the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, next week. A series of other evictions are also taking place. These are a reflection of the complete imbalance of power that exists between the landlords, effectively housing capital in this State, and tenants, that is, ordinary working-class people struggling to make ends meet and being asked to pay extraordinary and extortionate rents.

These amendments go some way towards addressing that imbalance of power. Unfortunately, the Government is not likely to agree to any of the substantial amendments to redress that. I will speak in a second about why we need to do that but I also make the point strongly that from previous experience, we know the Government will not listen to ordinary people and that it represents the interests of the landlords and developers. Therefore, the only way any change will be forced on this issue is by a movement from below. The elections in two and a half weeks' time present an opportunity for an expression of that but a week before then, on 18 May, a national demonstration under the banner of Raise the Roof will be held at 1 p.m. at Parnell Square in Dublin. It is vital that we bring thousands of people on the streets on that date to say no to any more evictions, to call for an increase in the rights of tenants and rent controls and to fight for the building of public homes on public land.

I will deal with some of the specifics of the amendments. We know that the most common reason given in eviction notices is sale of property. According to Threshold's annual report, it is used in 38% of the eviction notices with which it dealt - almost 2,000 eviction notices. We support the amendment that would remove that as grounds for sale. Our own anti-evictions Bill, which aims to do that, passed Second Stage. I have never heard the Minister or Government come back with a substantial reason as to why they cannot do that apart from the idea that it would discourage landlords from being in the market. Big landlords are not being discouraged from being in the market, as we see from front page stories about cuckoo funds. They are being incentivised with tax incentives and the highest rental yields in the EU. We know that a series of European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark, have such a ban on sale as grounds for eviction, meaning that if a property is to be sold, it must be sold with the tenant in situ. It is key that this be removed. It is utterly unacceptable that the Government continues to refuse to agree to it.

The second point I would make concerns the amendment relating to refurbishment or what are being called "renovictions", which is when landlords say they are going to do substantial refurbishment. We saw the case of Leeside Apartments in Cork when that was used as a pretext for evictions to hike up rents afterwards. We aim effectively to ban that. This amendment comes reasonably close to that in the sense of ruling it out as grounds unless it is necessary to maintain the dwelling for human habitation. In the majority of cases, the refurbishments that landlords are talking about can be done without any need for the tenant to move out. We know that 12% of the eviction queries received by Threshold in 2017 related to refurbishment or renovation.

The final point is key and involves the idea of giving indefinite tenancies. At the moment, landlords are able to evict with no reason at the end of a four or six-year Part 4 tenancy. Long-term good tenants enter into a danger zone where they can be forced out of their home with no reason given. It is vital to remove that by giving indefinite tenancies to tenants.

Obviously, we will speak and vote for these amendments, but we know the likely result. Perhaps we will hear what Fianna Fáil will do on these important amendments.

See this speech in context