Dáil debates

Friday, 3 December 2021

Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Second Stage

 

3:45 pm

Photo of Peter BurkePeter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Members for contributing to the debate and for the points they raised. It is interesting that a number of Deputies said the legislation was meaningless and would not serve its intended purpose, and yet they were very clear they are voting for the Bill. At the outset that seems very strange.

I refer specifically to Deputy Cian O'Callaghan's comments on the number of Bills we have introduced to protect renters, which I referenced in my opening statement. I indicated this has happened six times in the Thirty-third Dáil during the pandemic. The Deputy implied I was boasting about those Bills but I absolutely was not. I made it very clear in my statement why the previous Bill, introduced in July and which linked rental increases to inflation, did not work. I outlined the reasons for that. We are trying to respond to this so we can keep people in their homes and rents as stable as we can in what is a very challenging environment of the Covid-19 pandemic. Responding to those challenges is the Department's sole focus with these pieces of legislation.

I have been very clear in the past in outlining in this House the dysfunctional nature of the rental market. I am also very clear in my mind as somebody who attends a very busy clinic in my constituency office on a weekly basis, listening to very vulnerable people who are at their wits' end and concerned about rental increases, the availability of rental properties and, critically, their future access to sustainable housing. It is something that weighs heavily on me and the Government.

People come to this House to read emails and give details of very vulnerable constituents, and we all meet such people. Deputy Ó Murchú referenced the "single transferable speech" and it is the first time I have heard Sinn Féin refer to that single transferable speech that its Members read in this House. I would like to talk about the single transferable response we have seen from Sinn Féin. In the first instance, this is an ideology of objecting to housing. For example, a number of Deputies referred to the 854 units on Oscar Traynor Road but nobody referred to the political actions surrounding it. The development has four parks and is a mix of social, affordable and private housing of mixed tenure, which is best for society. It will have a community centre and childcare facilities all in one footprint. That was objected to by Sinn Féin. A second example is Ballymastone, where 1,200 houses were objected to by Sinn Féin.

This is the nub of the matter and it proves that Sinn Féin wants the housing crisis to escalate. We are always told in this Dáil Chamber we should have public houses on public land. Sinn Féin had a chance in Wicklow to vote for public houses on public land but those 18 public houses on public land were voted down by Sinn Féin. The view of Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats is that any additional residential development is overdevelopment, or at least that is what they indicate in submissions when they object to such projects. Sinn Féin has voted down development in local authorities and its response seems to be to object, object, object.

I can see, as part of the Government, that the solution to increasing rents and this crisis is an increase in supply. In any market where demand significantly outstrips supply, prices will go up. The sole primary response must be to increase our housing units. The last thing we need is Deputies constantly objecting to that while coming to this House trying to tell us they have a monopoly on compassion or how to represent vulnerable people in society. We in the Government benches meet every day of the week trying to help such people, but those in the Opposition continue to vote against public houses on public land. Those are the facts.

I have heard people trying to eulogise about the great responses Deputy Ó Broin would have if he had the honour of becoming the next housing Minister. In Sinn Féin's 2016 manifesto, the party clearly stated it would build 36,000 houses between 2016 and 2021. The Government delivered 39,000 houses a year earlier, by 2020. What Deputy Ó Broin may have delivered as a housing Minister is much less than what people got from the previous Government. Hearing such comments, I ask people to consider the facts and see what the parties can deliver. The Opposition can deliver one thing, which is objection after objection.

Another interesting aspect of the debate concerns why so many landlords are exiting the market, with 16,000 doing so since 2016. Of those, 85% had two or fewer properties and 75% had only one property. We need a sustainable number of landlords in the market. Nonetheless, in its pre-budget submission Sinn Féin proposed an additional tax of €400 on second units. All the landlords trying to hold on with one property would face additional taxation with Sinn Féin's policy. Deputy Ó Broin has said he does not know why they are leaving and surveys or data are being considered, but what is clear is we need a sustainable rental market. It is critical. It is what we are achieving with our cost rental model, which offers below-market rents and sustainable tenure through the €4 billion multi-annual budget in the Department. That is a record level of investment and the multi-annual element is important.

Deputy Fitzmaurice spoke on one-off rural housing. Being from a very large rural constituency, I know the importance of one-off rural housing. There was a failure to acknowledge and understand the demand for one-off rural housing as a sustainable form of housing. The reality is that people in rural areas have businesses such as agriculture, farming and large employers such as those in my area. There is Green Farm Fine Foods in Rathowen, Mergon in Castlepollard, or C&F in Collinstown. All those are outside the main arteries like Mullingar or Athlone. You need sustainable options for people like that. We are updating the 2005 sustainable rural housing guidelines. That will form part of our efforts to try to offer a sustainable alternative for people to have that right to build in rural areas and be part of their communities and keep local schools and shops open and enhance the GAA club. That is what we really want - to try to build mixed communities. As our housing increases, naturally it will be a smaller component. When we are building fewer than 5,000 houses, rural housing was the majority but as we escalate past 33,000, as we will, we need to acknowledge, understand and permit rural housing in our rural areas. We have to have a reasonable policy to allow that. I articulated that over the summer.

I am grateful to the Deputies who did give a response and put forward their views and to the joint committee for its quick examination of the legislation. I look forward to working with all Deputies in the House on it next week.

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