Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his response to Deputy Ó Laoghaire’s very well considered Bill. The Minister of State acknowledged that this is an issue that the Deputy has been working on for some time and in good faith. As the Deputy indicated at the start of his contribution, there is a similar situation in my constituency. It is a matter that was raised with me a short number of weeks ago. While the Clogherhead electoral district is not as large geographically or population-wise as Carrigaline, and this issue does not impact as many people in Clogherhead as Carrigaline, it is nonetheless important. I think the Minister of State will acknowledge that as well.

Tenants in my constituency in the Clogherhead electoral district are affected by this anomaly. It has been rightly described as an anomaly. I do not think for one minute that the situation we are describing here today would have necessarily been on the mind of the drafters of this Bill originally. We need to find flexibility in how this issue can be addressed in good faith and to address the needs of those who have raised this issue with us. This is because there is an inherent unfairness. I think the Minister of State will accept the logic behind what we are trying to communicate here today and the purpose of this Bill.

The neighbours of the individual I have been dealing with, and indeed others who may be affected, in Clogherhead are able to benefit from the protection that being in an RPZ brings but because of this bizarre anomaly and the way in which the original legislation is constructed, they find themselves stranded on an oasis, as Deputy Ó Laoghaire described it, free of those protections. That bizarre anomaly in the local designation of RPZs has resulted in tenants in Clogherhead, which is just north of Drogheda, the largest town in the country and is yet to be designated as a city, facing some of the biggest rent hikes in the country.

I will explain the sequence here, and it is important to put this on the record. Clogherhead, thanks to a complicated sequence of events over the past six years, has fallen between two stools. It remains a tiny oasis for landlords who can, as the law prescribes, demand whatever they like in rent from their tenants while all around Clogherhead, in the Drogheda and Ardee electoral areas, tenants can avail of restrictions on rent increases by being part of a rent pressure zone. Renters in Clogherhead remain outside the rent pressure zone. It is essentially a free for all for landlords in terms of the rent they can extract from tenants in that area. It could be described as a bonanza.

This odd situation was brought to my attention by a local woman who is renting in Clogherhead and who is facing a staggering almost 60% rent increase over the next couple of months. I was shocked by her story and I decided to investigate how this could be possible. It was my understanding - and I had just assumed it was the case - that all of County Louth was an RPZ. Every electoral area in County Louth is a rent pressure zone, apart from this comparatively tiny electoral district of Clogherhead. We just made that assumption and it is fair assumption to make. The matter had not been brought to my attention before. I had tabled a parliamentary question on the issue, unaware of the work that Deputy Ó Laoghaire had been doing for a number of years on this self-same issue. I tabled that parliamentary question to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, and the explanation for how Clogherhead found itself alone and outside the RPZ really beggars belief. It points to a fundamental flaw in the legislation that Deputy Ó Laoghaire’s legislation seeks to address sincerely and in good faith.

The principles of section 3 could be applied to the Clogherhead electoral district as well. They could address the problem I am raising. I will give the Minister of State some context because this is important so that people can follow it. I want to explain what happened over the past six years. The Drogheda local electoral area was designated as an RPZ in 2017. At that time, the Clogherhead electoral district was part of the Ardee local electoral area, which had not yet been designated as an RPZ. The Ardee LEA became an RPZ in 2019, but by that time, Drogheda LEA had been split in two and Clogherhead was transferred from the Ardee local electoral area to a new Drogheda rural local electoral area.

I hope the Minister of State is still following me. The problem with all this is that the Residential Tenancies Act, which lays down the criteria for being part of an RPZ, effectively freezes in time the make-up of a given LEA at the point it becomes designated as an RPZ, and therein lies the issue for tenants in Clogherhead. Put simply, Clogherhead was not part of any of the Drogheda LEAs when it became an RPZ and, subsequently, was not a part of Ardee LEA when it became an RPZ. As a result, it remains the only town in the region where renters cannot avail of the vital protections against the huge rent hikes in the way that all of its neighbours can.

The twin village of Termonfeckin is an RPZ. Right next door to it, Monasterboice is an RPZ. Tullyallen is in the Drogheda rural area RPZ, but Clogherhead is not. This needs to be urgently addressed. As a way forward, I suggest that any area transferred into an LEA that is designated as an RPZ would also become part of the RPZ. That should have been the default position when the original legislation was being drafted, debated and passed in these Houses. What we have now is these small islands of uncertainty for renters which leaves them vulnerable to excessive rent increases, which is way outside of the rate of inflation in terms of what landlords can do.

This kind of situation was never acceptable at any point and certainly could not be acceptable now when we face rent increases of up to 60% in a short period in the context of the cost-of-living crisis that we are experiencing and the housing crisis that we are also experiencing.

I took the time earlier today to look at daft.ie. We often peruse it on behalf of constituents who are looking for somewhere to rent given the very limited rental supply in our communities. In Clogherhead today, there is one property available to rent. It is a studio apartment for €1,000 per month. Effectively, my constituent is being asked to sign up to an enormous rent increase to remain living with her family in the area in which she was reared because there are simply no other options for her. She will be burdened with an enormous rent increase very soon. I think the Minister of State understands the logic of this and where this needs to go. For my constituent, a change to the legislation cannot come quickly enough because she is facing a rent increase after her notice period in August. From her point of view, we have two to three weeks to amend the legislation.

I do not detect that the Department sees this matter, whether it be Clogherhead or Carrigaline, as especially urgent. Not opposing the legislation is not the same as supporting it. The Minister of State says in his remarks that he is happy for this legislation to go to pre-legislative scrutiny. We simply do not know when that will happen. This is urgent. Deputy Ó Laoghaire has been raising this for several years. It is an area on which I have become much more knowledgeable because of the experience of my constituent. The default position simply could and should have been that once an electoral district is moved into an existing RPZ, tenants in the area are covered by the protections inherent in the RPZ legislation and the designation of that RPZ. That was the logical thing to do, and that is the principle against which this should be measured.

In conclusion, I will make a couple of points in response to the Minister of State's remarks and he might refer to them in his summing up. He says that for the purposes of the Act, "area" is defined as either the administrative area of a housing authority or an LEA within the meaning of section 2 of the Local Government Act 2001, and there is no provision for any other type of area to be designated as an RPZ. I can pretty much accept that. After what I have told the Minister of State about the entirety of County Louth - the local authority, which is the housing authority, as described in law - there is a means by which the Clogherhead electoral district could be designated as an RPZ. That would provide sufficient cover and support for the Minister to do that and it could not be defined as ministerial or political interference. There are two options here: it is either an LEA or, as described by the Minister of State in his remarks, a housing authority. A housing authority administrative area is the entire local authority administrative area, so this could be done on that basis. I ask the Minister of State to respond to that proposition.

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