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

The Taoiseach is clearly very touchy about the subject of his Government's lack of care for renters. The reason for that is that we have a government of landlords, for landlords. I will provide some facts rather than assertions. The cost of renting has more than doubled in the last ten years. Dublin has the fifth highest rents in all of Europe. Rents here are more expensive than in Paris, Berlin or Rome. Irish renters pay an average of 40% of their income in rent, the highest proportion in the world. There is a crisis facing renters in this country. The Government always said - and we have heard an echo of this from the Taoiseach today - that it could not introduce a ban on evictions, a rent freeze or proper rent controls that would bring rents down to affordable levels because the Constitution says "No". When Covid hit and the Government was under massive pressure, it found a way. Now that Covid is receding it is back to normal business for the Government and the landlords it represents.

The eviction ban is being lifted and the rent freeze with it. It is not enough, however, for the corporate landlords to return to their normal increases of 4% a year, which is, in effect, what the Government's rent controls meant. They want to make up for the 4% they missed out on last year. They want a double rent hike - two years of rent increases in the one year. As things stand, from 13 July literally hundreds of thousands of renters are facing rent increases of up to 8%. Jane, who lives in a very ordinary house in Tallaght, has been told that her rent is going up by €160 a month, an 8% increase to €2,140. Philip lives in an apartment in Islandbridge. His landlord is increasing the rent by €107 a month, an increase of 7.7%. Samantha in Dún Laoghaire is facing a 10% increase. Her rent is going up by €166 to €1,780 a month because the last time her rent was increased was in January 2019. Many of these people are the same people who are facing cuts to their pandemic unemployment payments. How are they meant to find this extra money to pay the landlords?

When I raised this issue with the Tánaiste last week, he said "I must admit to not being aware of that" and "I did not envisage that people would be able to apply a retrospective year." When I asked the Taoiseach about it yesterday he said, as he has said again today, that the Minister "is examining the situation". It speaks to the Government being entirely out of touch with renters that it did not know that this was coming. Does the Taoiseach not know any renters? Does the Tánaiste not know any renters? Now the Government says that it is going to deal with the issue but Philip, Jane and Samantha want assurances that the Government will prevent these double rent increases from occurring in July and they want those assurances today. They also want assurances that these double rent increases will be prevented from occurring in August, September or October, the door to this having been opened in what the Taoiseach just said. They want proper rent controls to be put in place to bring rents down to affordable levels.

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