Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Each and every day, people in my constituency of Tipperary contact me with issues relating to housing, which is one of the main issues facing people today. Housing is incredibly hard for people to come by. People are waiting years for a house that is suitable for their needs. The changes the Government wants to implement will only make that waiting list longer and leave people without a home that suits their needs or without a home altogether. In my constituency, young people with growing families are encountering incredible difficulties in getting a home that suits them. I am dealing with a number of cases in which young couples who are expecting a baby are forced to live apart at their parents' family homes as they wait for suitable local authority accommodation to become available to them. Can the Government imagine the circumstances that will face them when they realise that the local authority has little to offer and they are forced to look to the private sector for accommodation, given the changes it is making with the Bill? It will extend the ban on evictions to 10 January but that will be only for tenants who have lost jobs or income due to Covid-19, and they must confirm this to the RTB. The Government is, in effect, watering down the supports for tenants and giving landlords the power to evict others.

Let us look at the implications for the private rented sector of the changes the Government is suggesting. The impact of this will be felt in all sectors of society. The number of people looking for accommodation will increase, while competition for accommodation will get stronger and force rental prices upwards. The availability of accommodation available to the public will drop significantly. Homelessness will increase - the Minister can be sure of that - which will result in more and more couples like those I have mentioned having to live apart, or having to lower their standards and live in accommodation that is unsuitable for a growing young family, and they will be the more fortunate ones.

Let us now look at those on the other side. What about those who are forced out and have nowhere to go, who do not have the means to pay the high rents they are faced with because the market is once again geared towards landlords? The Simon Communities have stated they do not believe the Bill will provide the preferred level of protection to vulnerable renters. The organisation has stated it will not protect those tenants who could be made homeless if the landlord requires the property for his or her own use or wishes to sell it. It has described this policy as having been a driver of homelessness over the period of the housing and homelessness crisis. It is worried that removing this protection without providing comprehensive supports will lead to an increase in the number of people having to present to homeless services.

These aspects of the Bill - forcing tenants to vacate if the landlord requires the property or intends to sell it - are the most concerning for me. Who will be in a position to determine whether either purpose has been realised? Is the RTB funded enough to police this? Requiring the landlord to offer the property back to the tenant if either purpose has not been fulfilled after a year is not realistic. Over the course of that year, the tenant will have made other arrangements if they are fortunate enough. Otherwise, who knows what challenges they will have faced? While the Bill provides certain protections from eviction and rent increases, those protections will be available to far fewer people. This is an indictment of the failure of successive Governments to provide people with a fallback when it comes to accommodation, namely, the availability of local authority housing, which Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have ignored. We are over-reliant on the private sector in our rental market.

Landlords need an income and renters need accommodation but when demand outstrips supply, prices soar and those seeking houses lose out. When demand increases because of these measures, what plans are in place to deal with the people who are going to need accommodation?

I want to move on to those renters who would qualify for these protections. The Bill requires them to self-declare that they cannot make their payments due to loss of work or income. How are people going to be advised of how this process works? Is it going to be a complicated, drawn-out process or has the Minister created a structure that allows it to be streamlined? Will assistance be available to people? Can the Government assure us that no one is going to fall through the cracks here like before?

It is an absolute scandal that in this day and age people are going homeless and young people are being priced out of the rental market. The Minister has an opportunity to reverse the trend that has seen families living in hotel rooms, bed and breakfast accommodation and even in cars. Right now, he has a chance to address this dysfunctional rental system so I appeal to him to protect our renters now and to take the time to draw up a plan to reform the system into one that is fair, equitable, affordable and accessible. If that is too hard for the Government to do, the Minister can just ask us. We will be more than happy to send on Deputy Ó Broin's Sinn Féin housing policy to help it.

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