Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Since the cost of living crisis erupted and ordinary people face being crucified by energy and heating price hikes and rising accommodation and rental costs, we have sought to point out that this is not some natural phenomenon but that some people are benefiting from the misery and hardship that others are suffering. Last week we pointed out the enormous jump in profits for energy companies, electricity suppliers, oil companies and so on.

The latest evidence for the argument we are making, which the Government is determinedly ignoring, comes in the form of IRES REIT's accounts. It is the biggest landlord in the country, a property investment fund that saw its profits jump in 2021 by 15.8%, up to €67.5 million. Its investment properties grew by 6.7% up to €79.7 million. A figure I find really shocking is that its net rental income margin was 79%. The corporate landlords, the property investors, are absolutely creaming it on the back of the cost of living misery and absolutely obscene rents that are being charged to their tenants. We can just see it.

The daft.iefigures at the beginning of this month showed rents were up by 10.3% year on year for the last quarter. It had been 7% during the pandemic, already dramatic increases, rising as soon as the pandemic ends. In some parts of rural Ireland rents are up by as much as 22%. Average rents are now €1,524 a month. In south Dublin the average is €2,258 and across Dublin city it is €2,145. This leads directly to more people facing homelessness. During the pandemic when the Government was forced, under pressure, to introduce an eviction ban and a ban on further rent increases, the number of families and individuals in homeless accommodation dropped to about 7,000. It has steadily risen since those bans were lifted and is now up to 9,000. We do not have the figures yet for the beginning of 2020 but I can tell the House they are going to go up. We will be back towards the figure of 10,000 individuals and families who are homeless.

Will the Taoiseach finally do something about the profiteering and price gouging of landlords and introduce actual rent controls similar, for example, to those that have been introduced in the last two years in France, where they are now setting maximum reference rents above which landlords cannot go?

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