Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I support the amendment. It is important to note that since the previous Government introduced its strategy for the private rental sector in 2016 to the end of 2020, we have lost more than 20,000 properties from the private rental sector. We do not yet have the data for 2021. At the same time, rents during that period have increased by 30% to 40%. What we got under the previous Government's private rental strategy is rising rents and falling supply. It is quite a bizarre situation.

The Minister of State, Deputy Burke, is correct that the Government's new housing plan sets out a serious of measures, but it is particularly important to note that Dublin City Council and Cork City Council, which are the two largest urban areas with a large private rental sector, have published alongside the latest draft of their county development plans detailed housing needs demand assessments carried out under a set of tools provided by the Department, with data from the CSO and the ESRI and finalised by KPMG. Those housing needs demand assessments have concluded that if the Government meets all of its targets for social, affordable rental, affordable purchase and the private sector, as outlined in the housing plan, and if the economy grows on the basis of the projections of Government-funded bodies, between now and 2028 rents in Dublin will increase by an astonishing 50% and rents in Cork city will increase by an astonishing 36%. These independent analyses, which are not just some reports, but reports conducted by our two leading local authorities, published as appendices in their county and city development plan reviews, tell us that even if all of the Government's targets are met, which is a big question, over the next seven years rents will rise exponentially. How the Minister of State can come in here and say that the marginal increase in commencements, which is a factually accurate statement, is somehow is going to lead to reducing rental costs when all of the evidence is suggesting the contrary, beggars belief.

The central problem is as follows. Accidental and semi-professional landlords are leaving the market in their droves. Deputy Healy-Rae is right about that. As Government sits on its hands and does nothing about that, the new rental stock coming into the market is following a particular financial model whereby they will have to have continually increasing yields of in the region of 2% to 5% for the financing duration of the project, which is up to 25 years. Rents are only going in one direction, which is up. Everything the Government is doing is pushing up rents and driving small and semi-professional and accidental landlords out, which is all the more reason the very eminently sensible study which Deputy Cian O'Callaghan has called for should at a very minium be accepted by Government.

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