Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill, the purpose of which is to properly regulate private security services. This is an area that has gone unregulated for far too long. Banks and financial services firms have pretty much been able to hire who they want to do their dirty work of evicting the people who bailed them out during the financial crisis. Many in this House remember the shameful, violent eviction of three siblings from a property in Strokestown, County Roscommon, by a private security firm hired by KBC. In the lead up to Christmas 2018, KBC ordered the eviction of three siblings from their property. It hired a private security firm from Antrim, headed by an ex-UDR soldier, who, in the words of a colleague, thought he was Rambo. The actions of the security firm resulted in multiple people being left injured, a dog killed, several cars burned out and the siblings left suicidal. The siblings were dragged from their house by the security team and assaulted. Two elderly sisters were left on the roadside. The site was turned into a war zone. The company was ordered to pay fines of €3,000 for its gross misconduct during the eviction. This is the cost of no regulation. Ordinary people are left vulnerable to the activities of the worst of actors.

In 2019, Dublin City Council issued a tender for a seven-days-a-week private security firm to deal with Traveller evictions. Quite rightly, many Traveller communities and representative organisations were concerned about private security firms, particularly in the wake of the events at Strokestown and the hostility of many Government representatives to Travellers in general.

In 2020, while gardaí looked on, a private security firm evicted tenants from a property in Dublin without a court order. One Garda is reported to have said it was not their responsibility if the person was homeless. Subsequently, the tenants were able to regain access to the property after the eviction. The eviction by the firm led to significant damage to the property, which was left in an uninhabitable condition.

A large number of these types of situations are happening throughout the country. There are many people in mortgage distress. many businesses in insolvency and many people who have spent their whole lives, their blood, sweat and tears and their investments on keeping a business, farm or home afloat. These people have been removed from their properties on many occasions by individuals who have no respect for humanity, no respect for the rule of law and no decency whatsoever. There is not a Deputy in the House who has not had decent individuals in their constituencies tell them these horrifying stories. The fact it has been let go unchecked for so long is incredible.

While I am speaking on this issue, I want to say that it is hard to separate it from what is happening in the housing crisis in general. The sector we are discussing is one that is feeding off the dysfunction relating to the housing sector. This week, we have seen many Government Deputies and Ministers feign shock at what is happening in the housing sector. It amazes me that they do this because they were the willing architects of the housing market we have at present. They put in the tax breaks for the international investors to hoover up homes from first-time buyers in the sector. These political parties and Deputies rolled out the red carpet for many of the international investors who are now fighting a David versus Goliath battle each day for homes throughout the country. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are the architects of a market that pits small families against big international firms that have a massive competitive advantage over them. Those firms are availing of interest rates of 0% on the international markets while homeowners and families here pay the highest interest rates for mortgages in the European Union.

These investors have tax rates that would not be given to people on low incomes in this country, even though they make millions of euro. It was done so by Fine Gael. I remember asking Michael Noonan, the former Minister for Finance, in a committee how could he allow this to happen and he said that the house prices in this country are not dear enough. At the time, the Labour Party supported that. Fianna Fáil supported it subsequently from the Opposition benches in its confidence and supply agreement and is standing by, feigning shock today.

Another key element in the dysfunction of the housing market has to be the dysfunction of the banking sector. One of the reasons developers in this country currently cannot get the finances necessary to take on some of these projects is because we have a banking crisis in Ireland of mammoth proportions that is affecting nearly every element of society. This crisis is also the design of Fine Gael. I remember Mr. Noonan, the previous Minister for Finance, launching in the Dáil this idea of a two-pillar bank market. Those two banks own most of the market. They are an oligopoly. They have enormous supplier power. They can determine every element of the market and they are doing that. The few competitors left are fleeing the market. Ulster Bank and KBC have given notice that they are on the way out and yet we have nothing more than shrugs from the Government with regards what needs to be done in relation to fixing the dysfunctional banking market - a banking market that leads to the highest interest rates in Europe, that leads to people not being able to get funding for the development of homes and leads to other sectors of society not being able to be funded as well.

A number of colleagues from other political parties and I are seeking the development by the Government of a banking forum. It would be made up of stakeholders in that sector such as the trade unions that work in the banking system, first and foremost, but also trade unions in general, small businesses, representatives of farmers and representatives of rural areas. We seek the getting together of a forum before the year is out to make sure that we can design a functioning banking market. Primary to that objective that we have is that there would be a public banking system created. I refer to a public banking system that pretty much every political party in this Chamber says it supports. Currently, the only party that is against it is Fine Gael. I am hopeful that this motion will be passed at committees across Leinster House and that we can build momentum towards a proper public banking system. I have been talking to colleagues from other political parties and this is not an effort to nationalise the banking system. This is an effort to have a diverse banking system that has good, strong private firms operating within the market but also has strong public banks, strong credit unions and post offices operating in this market so that there is competition. That is necessary.

When we talk about the issue before the House of private security firms and the need for their regulation, Aontú supports that 100%. However, it is a symptom of a greater malaise within Irish society. It is a malaise that is the construct of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, albeit one about which they feign amazement that it exists at all and one to which they provide nothing but shrugs as a solution to resolving it. I support this Bill but call on the Government to get to the bottom of the housing crisis. If they do not, they will create a tenant class in this country the likes of which has not been seen since the time of the landlords, a tenant class where those in their 20s, 30s and 40s are straddled with rents so high that they will never be able to afford a mortgage, and a system whereby there is a transfer of wealth continuously happening from families to massive international firms spreading that concentration of wealth into the hands of the few. It is incredible that we stand here, hopefully, at the ending of the Covid pandemic, yet we are saying to this generation that it is the first generation in hundreds of years that will be poorer and less well off than the generation that went before. That is the wrong message that Leinster House gives out. We need to reverse that message. We need to be serious about putting in place the mechanisms to create real competition in the banking market and real competition in the housebuilding market, to take the competitive advantages away from the international firms and to improve the competitive advantages of the young families who are trying to get onto the housing market.

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