Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Undoubtedly, nobody in the Chamber condones the behaviour of a landlord exploiting somebody who is seeking accommodation for personal sexual benefit. Condemnation is not the same as action, however, and I thank my colleague, Deputy Cian O'Callaghan, for being the one to take action against this predatory behaviour, as well as journalist Ms Ann Murphy of the Irish Examinerfor her critical work in highlighting the matter and bringing attention to it. I also acknowledge the Cabinet for accepting the Bill and I ask it to continue to support this work by fast-tracking the Bill's passage.

I hope that there will continue to be cross-party support for ending the abhorrent and exploitative practice of sex for rent. The Minister of State has outlined some of the issues in respect of the Bill comprehensively. One of the omissions from his statement was the timeline. We accept there is urgency, so let us get urgent about it. I hope the Minister of State will in his next response outline the timeline by which we can develop legislation he feels is appropriate.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan's Bill is clear in its objective that no one should be expected or required to occupy his or her landlord's bed for a roof over his or her head. Landlords who engage in such predatory behaviour will face a fine or imprisonment of up to seven years or both. The Bill also provides that those who publish, arrange or facilitate sex as a condition of accommodation will face a fine of €50,000. When introducing the Bill, Deputy Cian O'Callaghan spoke about how in times of crisis there are always those, however few, who will seek to exploit and take advantage of others who are at their most vulnerable and desperate.

While we should be disgusted at those who seek to exploit others at their most vulnerable and desperate, we need to be equally disgusted by a society that causes such desperation, poverty and scarcity when it comes to something as basic as housing. I strongly welcome the Cabinet's acceptance of this legislation and the action it will take against predators exploiting the scarcity of housing and shelter for our most vulnerable. Will the Cabinet also accept the conditions which create those vulnerable people who fall prey to predators? The housing and rental crisis in Ireland is deepening. Overlapping with it is the cost of living crisis. The number of homes available to rent nationwide reached an all-time low according to the fourth quarter rental report from Daft. Just 1,397 were available to rent on 1 February nationwide, pushing rents up even higher and overlapping with inflation, which is at its highest rate since 2018.

Consistently, the groups most at the margins of our society are most vulnerable to exploitation in housing. In 2021, research published by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and the Economic and Social Research Institute found that less than 25% of one-parent families reported home ownership compared with 70% of the total population. Over half of all homeless families were one-parent families and their children. Some 48% of migrants live in the private rental sector but just 9% of those born in Ireland live in the private rental sector. It is these groups who are most likely to experience financial hardship, deprivation and poverty in our society. They face the most profound barriers to accessing secure housing and are most likely to face such cruel and exploitative practices as the one Deputy Cian O'Callaghan's Bill aims to confront.

Globally, another crisis is taking place. The war in Ukraine with Russia has global ramifications. The United Nations reports that 10 million people have been uprooted from their homes with 3.5 million of them forced to leave their country and 6.5 million internally displaced within Ukraine. In Ireland, 20,000 people have pledged their homes to Ukrainians fleeing the war. While the vast majority have done so in solidarity and altruism, again there have already been reports of some using this crisis of women fleeing the war and seeking refuge in our country for their own sexual gain. Ann Murphy in the Irish Examinerlast week reported that a property in Clare was being offered to a Ukrainian woman for free with an expectation of sex. The landlord demanded a photo be provided from the prospective tenant before providing the exact location of the property. Nasc, the Migrant and Refugee Rights Centre, has urged Ukrainians arriving into Ireland not to consider sex for rent accommodation arrangements and to avoid any accommodation that is unethical or immoral.

There is a dearth of information when it comes to this practice, which is extremely worrying as the extent of the problem is hard to quantify. The Garda PULSE system does not record sex for rent complaints as a specific category. However, recent research done by UK housing and homeless charity, Shelter, found that 30,000 women in the UK were propositioned for sex for rent arrangements between March 2020 and January 2021. Sex for rent specifically targets women from migrant backgrounds precisely because of their additional vulnerability due to reduced levels of knowledge and lack of social and support networks. Last February the Irish Examinerspoke to six women who were offered accommodation by a landlord at either a reduced rate or for free with an expectation of sex. Five of the six were foreign women who had travelled to Ireland for work or study.

We need to be cognisant of the power imbalance at play between landlords and those looking for secure and safe housing. We need to question ourselves as legislators. Why is it taking us so long to act? Why have we allowed landlords to abuse their status for such exploitative purposes for so long without facing specific criminal penalties? The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage issued a statement last week vehemently condemning any attempts to target vulnerable persons with an offer of accommodation in return for sexual acts, including those fleeing the devastation of war in Ukraine, and calling the practice exactly what it is, abhorrent. However, the statement also mentioned the introduction of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017, which has provided for a better representation of consent and explicitly states that it must be freely and voluntarily given.

Although we have these criminal laws that deal with sexual offences of rape and consent, we still need something like the Bill Deputy Cian O'Callaghan proposes. The legislation now makes it abundantly clear that consent must be freely and voluntarily given. In other words, submission where someone feels forced or has no other choice is not the same as consent. Sex for rent arrangements are by their very nature non-consensual because of the exploitation and power imbalance within them. In addition, the act of a landlord seeking a sex for rent arrangement, advertising or propositioning a person for sex for rent, needs to be criminalised. There should be criminal sanctions for those who facilitate or attempt to arrange this cruel practice. Currently there is no legislation in place to deal with the practice of landlords offering sex for rent arrangements. This is exactly what Deputy Cian O'Callaghan's Bill seeks to address, targeting the small number of landlords who carry out this grossly exploitative practice.

There are legitimate concerns and criticisms that the Bill will not fully address the problem, which we all believe are fair. This form of exploitation and coercion, of men using their power differentials to exploit vulnerable people, must be seen on the spectrum of men's violence against women which we have often and rightly discussed in this Chamber over the last months. This despicable form of that particular plague is even more insidious as it taps into the structural violence that comes from our housing crisis and crisis of poverty. While not even close to a panacea, the Bill is an acceptance from the State that predatory men are using the failures of the State, homeless and poverty, to prey on vulnerable women living in our country today.

The Bill seeks to address a very real practice within the rental sector. It is also an example of something that is endemic within our rental sector, namely, the exploitation of people in desperate situations. There is a housing crisis in our country. The lack of supply and consequential high rents coupled with poor security of tenure mean people end up being taken advantage of and exploited by manipulative individuals. Those conditions have been created and perpetuated by successive Governments.

There is a responsibility to act, and quickly. We are proud that the Cabinet has agreed to support the work of Deputy Cian O'Callaghan by supporting the Bill. We request a timeline for its implementation. If the Government agrees that the requirement of sex as a condition of accommodation is truly abhorrent, it should only seek to fast-track the Bill in order that the practice of sex for rent comes to an end and the minority of landlords who use this exploitative tactic face the full legal consequences.

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