Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We in the Labour Party have through the course of the pandemic always said we will work constructively with the Government to do whatever we can to get our society across a number of sectors, including the rental sector, through it. The rental sector was in crisis before the pandemic and that has been in some ways suspended and in others compounded by the pandemic.

We will support the Bill, although we feel elements of it could have been improved. We ask the Minister to look at that on Report Stage, although I imagine that is unlikely. The protections required need to look beyond this summer and take a longer term view. Our legislation needs to be robust enough and take a sufficiently long view of the reality that the rental crisis will explode once this pandemic lifts. The protection of renters and banning of evictions are key to tackling the homeless crisis and everything we have experienced, cumulatively building up over the last decade. Maintaining the eviction ban when it worked at the beginning of the pandemic was a good thing. However, this Bill does not propose that. The original protections have been diminished and stripped away, which is difficult to stand over. While Government spin is that it is taking drastic action to safeguard renters during a pandemic, it has done the bare minimum every time. Each successive Bill it places before the Dáil further erodes the protections put in place.

The pandemic has not only affected the rental sector. It has impacted on many other sectors, including construction. Whatever building was in the works to provide housing, particularly the small amount of public and social housing that was due, has been further delayed. This lag will be extended into next year. People in private residential tenancies hoping to transition - and it is a small hope - to affordable housing, local authority housing or housing through an approved housing body need to be accounted for. For the sake of simplicity and the security of renters, they should be safeguarded until at least the end of 2022, to account for the construction sector lag.

Figures from the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, showed 1,100 households that were renting were given eviction notice over the last ten months, despite the Government ban being in place. This highlights that we need a comprehensive renter strategy. What was put in place certainly did not work for 1,100 households. I, like many in opposition and, I imagine, even the Minister, have dealt with households that have received tenancy eviction notice over the last year.

Rents in Ireland have significantly increased in recent years. The statistics around that are eye-watering. Despite this, no-fault evictions are still allowed. The figures from the RTB show it is back to business as usual for landlords who choose to treat their tenants poorly. We need greater security of tenure. The figures show that for 73% of people evicted from their home in a pandemic, it was through no fault of their own. It is unfair, inhumane and points to a systemic failure to treat renters as equal citizens in our housing system.

The patchwork effort by Government over the last year has not helped renters to the degree it should have and is symptomatic of an ongoing failure to address the core problems of soaring rents and lack of security of tenure. Limiting evictions has a direct impact on people entering homelessness and it is incredible that stronger measures were not put in place.

The Government’s latest Bill to protect renters will not stop the 8% rent rises a loophole in the law will allow. The system is inherently cumbersome and complex with people self-selecting as being financially impacted, rather than the Government carrying out a thorough assessment of the state of play for renters. The numbers registering as being financially impacted are ridiculously low at 475, as this is a self-declare process. The system is cumbersome and does not give protection to the vast majority of renters impacted by this pandemic. This means the vast majority of renters, approximately 200,000, face this 8% increase. In allowing the increase, the Government shows it ultimately has little regard for renters. To call this an oversight is an understatement; it is a dereliction of duty and responsibility to those people living in rented accommodation.

In areas of Dublin where people pay, on average, €2,000 per month, the increase will work out at approximately €160 per month or €1,920 per year. These are astronomical figures. We are in danger sometimes of becoming desensitised to them because they are repeated so often in debates in this Chamber but for people on low and middle incomes, these are huge amounts of money. It impacts on bills, school clothes and books, light, heat and, ultimately, people’s ability to keep that roof over their head. It is unfeasible and unfair.

The housing system is not working for renters and we need a comprehensive strategy. The Labour Party wants to see an approach that protects renters through greater security of tenure, a short-term rent freeze and a State-led approach to building more affordable homes to address the chronic supply issues that have beset the sector for far too long.

The Government must immediately implement a rent freeze. Despite promises from the Taoiseach to close the 8% increase loophole, this Bill, as published, does not address the issue but instead extends protections for those who proactively register as financially impacted. The Government needs to intervene. There is much hand-wringing from the Minister about young people and the burden they have borne through this past year. Many young people currently pay hand over fist for box rooms or shared rooms. News they will face an 8% increase on top of these sometimes intolerable living conditions will surely make up their minds to leave this country when they can. That is what we are getting through our constituency offices and advice clinics. People are now starting to talk in greater numbers about emigration because the living costs they face are too onerous.

Dublin now accounts for almost half of all new graduate jobs but most of these graduates cannot afford to pay high Dublin rents. This is unsustainable and destroying the quality of life. It is not just graduates. What about the people going direct to work, entering through low paid roles and trying to build a career in another sector? They fall off the agenda and the map when it comes to renting and being able to afford to live.

In terms of a rent freeze, it is not the Attorney General who decides on the constitutionality of any measure; it is the Supreme Court. If there was ever a time for the Government to back renters and have someone test a Bill for the Supreme Court, it is with regard to the imposition of a rent freeze. There is no time to delay on this. We have seen the power of the State to intervene during this crisis in many ways we thought impossible. This is not impossible and has been done before. The Labour Party froze rents when we were last in government and it can be done again, if there is political will to do so. That political will is obviously absent. Rent caps need to be used until more homes are built and the housing crisis is at the point of being resolved or at least at the point where we can point to enough supply to get us where we want to be.

When I listen to Members of the Government parties talk about the balance between landlords and tenants, the market and the property rights, it is very clear they believe their responsibilities lie with the landlords. The Opposition tried twice to give the Minister the power to implement an eviction ban based on regulations and public health advice but not to have it tied to a 5 km limit. At the time, this was disregarded. There is such a significant difference in power between landlords and tenants that it is one of the key dividers in society.

The deposit protection scheme, as had been promised and legislated for previously by my colleague, Deputy Kelly, has made little or no progress in the past five years. Again, this is something the Minister could advance. According to Threshold, queries on deposits increased by 43% last year. People living in rental accommodation feel vulnerable and afraid. Deposits play a key role in terms of access and for people who are exiting in terms of having the protections of the deposit they paid a year, two years or five years previously. We need the Government to act to protect renters in a holistic fashion and not to focus solely on the costs, which is the reason we must examine deposits. We must ban the practice of landlords requesting more than a month's rent as a deposit. Agreeing a tenancy should not be a significant financial outgoing.

We must introduce minimum standards so that tenants know the place they are viewing meets a strong national standard on many elements, including fire safety and building standards. We must ensure rent and deposit savings are counted as part of credit ratings to help people, including renters, should they choose to become buyers in the housing market. We need a rent-to-buy scheme where a person with a tenancy for three years who successfully pays all his or her rent would see it turned into a deposit for the property when the time comes. We must offer something to renters and young people. At the moment we are offering them very little, expect for despair and a ticket out of this country, because that is the direction we are going.

We urged the Government to introduce a vacant home tax to bring empty housing stock into use for those who need it. People are rightly outraged at the degree to which the Government is prioritising investors over ordinary hard-working people in the midst of the housing crisis. We have so many vacant units that could be used either for first-time buyers or for renters. The situation is crippling people. The Labour Party housing spokesperson, Senator Moynihan, has called on the Government to take action to discourage the funds gobbling up the housing supply through a levy on vacant homes. These are all measures that are at the Minister's disposal.

I look forward to Report Stage when I hope we can get through some amendments in the short timeframe provided. We will support the Bill tonight, as it offers some protections, which we welcome, but overall the crisis still exists and people are still being evicted from their homes. When the pandemic ends, we believe the rug will be pulled out in such a dramatic way that what happened before the pandemic will pale in comparison to what happens after it.

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