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

Renters need a break. We have had five years now of month-on-month falling supply. It is not just landlords leaving the market as they are taking rental properties with them as they sell them. Rents have never been higher and they are now higher than they were at the very peak of the Celtic tiger and continuing to rise. We have had nine straight months of a rising rate of homelessness of adults and children. Half of the notices to quit are landlords selling and leaving the market.

It gives me no pleasure to say it but there is a reason for this and it is 11 years of failed Fine Gael housing policy in the private rental sector. It was supported for five years by Fianna Fáil and, unfortunately, notwithstanding its good policies in opposition, the Green Party is now supporting those same policies. That is the reason we are in our current difficulty.

I have said from the very start of this debate that short-term lets are not the cause of the crisis in the private rental sector, but at a time when every long-term rental unit has the potential to prevent a family with children becoming homeless, the full enforcement of regulations formulated by a former Minister and Deputy, Mr. Eoghan Murphy, is valuable at this point. We have never said it would solve the housing crisis or that the approach is a silver bullet, but at the very minimum, the regulations that exist should be enforced. I assure my colleagues from County Kerry about what they should know, which is that those regulations do not apply to areas not designated as rent pressure zones, including many of the rural areas about which they spoke. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae also posed a very important question. What is done for the workers in Dingle? If we have no rental units they can rent, who is going to staff the pubs where the tourists he wants in short-term rentals might go? He cannot have it both ways.

It is always a shame when a Minister of State who starts a row leaves the Chamber before the row can be finished, but I should at least put on the record my responses to Deputy Peter Burke. He claims Sinn Féin's proposal for a refundable tax credit to put a month's rent back in renters' pockets will drive up rents. He conveniently forgets to mention, of course, that we would combine that with a three-year ban on rent increases for all new and existing tenancies, which would make rent increases impossible. He claims our proposals for a second home tax would make the lives of single property landlords worse, but he is wrong because we would abolish the property tax, so they would be no worse off than they are under this Government.

Again, Deputy Cian O'Callaghan is correct that the Government has not introduced tenancies of indefinite duration and it is not honest to say that. The Government made a small technical change, welcome as it was, but until we remove the section 34 grounds for notices to quit, tenancies of indefinite duration do not exist in this jurisdiction. At the very least we should be upfront with people. It is incorrect for the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, to say there is not a privileging of institutional investors. The very fact they pay no tax on their rent roll and single property landlords pay a high rate of tax is evidence of that.

There seems to be a difference between what the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, has said and what the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, states. The Minister of State, Deputy Burke, very clearly said local authorities and the planning code would no longer have a role in this area. There is value in giving planning authorities a role in determining whether properties in certain areas should be in the long-term or short-term rental market. They have a housing needs and demand assessment and they understand what is needed, so they can make those judgment calls rather than just giving a blanket "yes" or "no" inside or outside rent pressure zones.

There is an argument that planning enforcement is slow, legalistic and expensive so we cannot have spot fines, but that misses the point. It is precisely because planning enforcement is so slow, legalistic and expensive that we should consider spot fines, which would be a much more effective approach, especially in cases like this. Notwithstanding all of that we will look at the Government's legislation positively when it comes forward. The one thing I have not heard from the Government is any sanction on platforms, estate agents or anybody else who facilitates and profits from the short-term letting of properties that are breaking planning law. I have concerns about this being done through Fáilte Ireland but I will discuss those at the appropriate time. Whether it is done through Fáilte Ireland or local authorities, it is not acceptable for an estate agent or a platform like Airbnb to advertise and take money from hosts who are outside the law.

More than those of anybody else, the remarks of Deputy Connolly probably summed this up in saying how ironic it is that the Opposition is bringing forward a Bill to assist the Government in enforcing its own regulations. In the spirit of co-operation I outlined at the start, I urge the Government to work with us on this and engage in the process. Let us ensure that whatever legislation is brought forward fixes the problem. Where short-term lets are appropriate for tourism reasons, let us have them. Where genuine peer-to-peer home sharing is a good idea, let us have it. Let us not, however, allow thousands of properties that should be in the owner occupation or long-term rental market to operate above the law in the short-term letting market. It is not good or lawful. We should, collectively, stamp it out.

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