Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have a fundamental problem with this Bill, because the purpose of it is to transfer responsibility for a series of failures of government over decades onto the private sector and, in particular, onto a small group in the private sector who are less well equipped to bear the burden of that than another group in the private sector. Before I was elected to this Dáil, I worked as an adjudicator in the Private Residential Tenancies Board, PRTB. In that time, I was shocked by the standard of tenancies in which people were expected to live in the Clare area. I was shocked by the complete inaction of the State apparatus to do anything about that. There was a complete lack of engagement by local authorities. The responsibility to inspect was given to local authorities, rather than to the PRTB, and local authorities were simply not carrying out those inspections, which was essentially enabling rogue landlords to get away with letting houses in appalling conditions. I am aware that the Housing for All strategy has set a target of 25% of all tenancies to be inspected, and there was quite a big jump in the number of inspections in 2019. It fell off in 2020 and 2021 during Covid. I note, from the Minister of State's latest response to a parliamentary question, it was up again substantially in the first quarter of 2022. I hope that continues, because it is vitally important that landlords know their tenancy will be inspected and it has to meet a certain minimum standard. Otherwise, we are essentially allowing a free-for-all in a market where there is complete inequality between the tenant and the landlord.

The other thing I was shocked at was the complete powerlessness of landlords to evict a rogue tenant. I am not referring to a tenant who perhaps could not afford to pay, which would be very unfortunate for a landlord if it meant he or she would fall behind. Not every landlord buys as an investment, and certainly not every landlord is a huge investment trust. I will come to a particular example soon. There are lots of people who are accidental landlords, who ended up being a landlord because they bought a house, could not afford to sell it because it was in negative equity for a number of years, and had to move to another part of the country. Often such landlords become tenants themselves, and become landlords of their own homes. If people stopped paying rent, even if it was because they could not pay it, it still left the landlord in arrears. The length of time it took to get action from the PRTB was simply appalling at the time. There were other cases of the willful destruction of the tenancy by the tenant, and again, the landlord was completely hamstrung. There is no right to peaceable re-entry as there is in a commercial tenancy. Many people in this House called for private tenancies to be treated like commercial tenancies in terms of tenancies being able to continue beyond the sale and properties being sold subject to a tenancy, but obviously nobody is calling for the right to peaceable re-entry, because it is somebody's home. Therefore, there has to be a certain fairness in the legal framework that is applied. I am talking about small individual landlords. I have seen photographic evidence of the most appalling destruction of what was once a landlord's family home that they ended up having to let out, and having to wait months - years, in some instances - to be able to get the tenant out lawfully by relying on the State. That, as much as the failure to carry out inspections, is a failure of the State.

During the summer, I had the luxury of being on holiday at one point. I got a phone call from a constituent, who I will call Seán, for the purposes of this contribution. I know his family well. He and his wife left Ireland to go to another country with their child. They had planned to return to Ireland, having made some money like a lot of young couples. His wife became ill and due to the deficiencies of our health system, which are particularly pronounced in the midwest, they decided to stay in the country they were in for treatment. She subsequently passed away from cancer. It was their joint wish, before she passed away, that he would bring up the child up in the family home in Ireland. Seán contacted the tenant that was in the family home and asked him to leave. The tenant said, "Oh yeah". When he got back to Ireland he reminded the tenant that he would like him to leave at that time, and the tenant responded and said that he had not been served with a notice to quit. Seán then served the tenant with a 120-day notice to terminate the tenancy. On the 120th day, the tenant said he had received the notice and knew what Seán meant, but the notice was deficient because a couple of words were missing from it, so he was not moving anywhere. The process started all over again. Now, the Government is telling Seán that he and his child cannot go into their home.

I appreciate that hard cases make bad law but we must acknowledge that not all landlords are unscrupulous profit-loving corporations that are investing. If we continue down the road we are on, those are the only people who will be landlords. I would not like to be a tenant with a dodgy landlord but I certainly would not want to be a landlord in Ireland either. The only people who will want to be landlords are these large corporations because they are the only ones with deep enough pockets. My constituent is living in what is now overcrowded accommodation with other family members and his infant son, having returned to Ireland. He is bemoaning the fact he brought his son, who is a citizen of Ireland, back to this county. As far as he is concerned, he has been utterly let down by the State. As much as his tenant might feel let down by the State because there is no rental accommodation available, that is not a failure of my constituent or people like him, yet they are the ones who are going to bear the brunt of it.

This Government and previous governments failed to invest adequately in the Residential Tenancies Board to ensure it was fit for purpose. They failed to ensure there were enough inspections to disincentivise rogue landlords. Most fundamentally, they failed to invest in housing and build houses. Notwithstanding that momentous failure of governments over decades, it is now being made the problem of my constituent. His tenant's problem is his problem. His own child's problem is also his problem. Is that fair? It is not disproportionate for a landlord to tell tenants they can still be evicted if they cannot pay rent, which is the fundamental problem. If it is okay to evict somebody because they cannot pay rent, why can my constituent, or somebody like him, not tell his tenants that while he has the utmost sympathy for them, he needs the house as much as they do? Why can he not tell his tenants that while he appreciates it is their home, it is also his home because he bought it and is paying the mortgage, and wants to bring up his son in the house, as his wife wanted? If the Minister is going to exclude people who cannot pay rent, and that is considered proportionate, then I say it is utterly disproportionate not to allow somebody to serve a notice to quit so they can re-enter their home. I am introducing an amendment to that effect, which the Minister of State might be minded to accept. It is something that will not affect the large corporations because they are not going to want to enter a home. It is only individuals who will want to enter a home for their own purposes or those of a family member. I urge the Minister of State to think about that. As far as I can see, all this Bill is doing is to transfer responsibility for a problem to which this Government and previous governments have contributed on to the private sector. That seems utterly disproportionate.

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