Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on this legislation. When we are talking about rent reviews, we must discuss several aspects. Before I go any further, I must state that I have a vested interest. I have properties that I have rented out. We do, however, need to regulate rents.

We need to set standards that are fair for both the renter and landlord. A rent authority would probably be a good mechanism whereby someone with a fair-minded view could look at this and make sure that the rents being set are affordable and that landlords, especially accidental landlords, are not being pushed out of the market or forced to sell their property. When a property is put up for rent in my constituency, a significant number of people want it and that creates a supply-and-demand issue, which is not good. It is creating a false economy as well because it will not be sustainable for landlords to continue to receive these type of rents going into the future.

Some landlords and people with a second property are exiting the market and selling their properties. They have told me that there is no real glory in renting out a house, meeting all the regulations and dealing with tenants and all of that. We have to keep this argument balanced. I am aware of a few tenants who have not been fair when renting a property. The way they treated the property and landlord was not great. I have seen pictures in one case that show how they treated a house in which the landlord was left with a bill of approximately €14,000 to get the house back in rentable condition. That is a fact. It has happened on a number occasions and, therefore, the landlord is not the devil. Landlords are trying to do their best. Extortion is going on in terms current rents and how they are increasing and we need to do something about that.

I have received many complaints from landlords about the RTB in recent months. The fee is now to be paid annually as opposed to every three years. People find the payment system to be cumbersome and they say it is failing because properties are not being registered. If a cheque is sent in, the board denies that it was received. If the fee is paid online, the payment is taken from landlords' accounts but does not seem to be arriving in the RTB account or the system does not show that the landlords have conformed by paying their fee. Properties are not being registered properly by the board and it is creating angst among landlords. Will the Minister of State bring this back and look at what is going on because it does not look right? The RTB should do things properly. The board brought in a new system that it cannot use so how can it expect landlords to use it?

Going back to the basic point, rents should be set in a fair way for both the tenant and the landlord. Rents should be based on some sort of indexation so that rates do not fire ahead when supply becomes tight. This comes back to the original question of why we have high rents. It is because we are not delivering houses quickly enough in this country to make sure the supply is available. We need to do more on that.

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