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

It has never been harder in modern times to be a private renter. Rents are at record highs and are continuing to rise ever upward. The threat of eviction and eviction notices is a daily reality and the threat of homelessness for an ever-wider range of people living in the private rental sector is a real concern. We only have to look at the data that is produced by Government agencies to confirm all of that. The most recent Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, rent report showed us that, since its series began in 2007, new rents have increased by the highest level on record, at almost 12% across the State and 10% in Dublin. That means that for an average new renter, it is over €1,500 a month and €2,000 a month in Dublin. The RTB report also recorded and published for the first time in many years existing rents for renters who have not moved property in the last year, and even there the news is very bad, with a 5% increase in existing rents State-wide and a 5.5% increase in Dublin.

What is interesting about both of those figures is that while they do not easily correlate to levels of compliance, it is clear there is an element of non-compliance both with new rents and existing rents. In fact, at the launch of its report last week, the Residential Tenancies Board confirmed that all of this data will allow it to take a much firmer role with enforcement. The data does not tell us who is and who is not abiding by the rules but, clearly, non-compliance is significant.

It is likewise with eviction notices. There have been 15,000 notices of termination in the first three quarters of this year and given that trend, it will be 20,000 eviction notices for the year. Again, while we cannot compare that with previous years because of the way the data is published, it is a very significant number. If someone is a young renter who aspires to buy, it is now virtually impossible to save for a deposit. However, as the most recent census report also showed us, there has been an 87% increase in older people living in the private rental sector, which, according to Threshold and Alone, is a sector that is inadequate to meet their medium- to long-term housing needs.

No matter what way we look at it, the longer Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are in government, the worse the crisis in the private rental sector is going to get. What is the Government’s response? No matter what it is that it does, it is too slow, too late, too little and far too ineffective.

Let us look at the proposals. For a long time, Sinn Féin called for a full month's rent to go back into every renter's pocket through a refundable tax credit and it was opposed year after year by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. When they eventually decided to do it, the rent level of the tax credit was far too low and far too few renters have availed of it - just over 50% last year and only 64,000 of 400,000 renters so far this year. Even in the budget just gone, there was a meagre increase to €750 a month and, of course, because rents are not capped, that means it will all be swallowed up in rental inflation. So it is also with the tenantin situscheme, which was introduced far too late. I will accept that despite the fact the Minister dragged his heels for over a year, social tenantin situis working, as we said it would. However, cost-rental tenantin situis not working and more work needs to be done on that.

Probably the most scandalous part of the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien's failure is his lack of delivery of affordable housing. The numbers speak for themselves for affordable purchase and affordable cost rental through approved housing bodies, AHBs, and the Land Development Agency, LDA. One of the most bizarre things is that the Minister cannot even tell us how many properties there are in the private rental sector because the CSO gives us one figure and the RTB gives us another, and there are 80,000 homes of a difference between the two. Therefore, not only is the Minister making things worse, but he cannot even tell us how large that sector is and whether it is shrinking or stagnating.

The bottom line, of course, is that the Government's plan simply is not working. The best evidence of that is homeless figures, which show a month-on-month increase since the Minister ended the most recent ban on no-fault evictions, as well as the previous Covid ban. The alternative that we have set out over and over again, including in this motion, is that we need a ban on rent increases for three years, a real refundable tax credit and at least 8,000 genuinely affordable homes to rent or buy each year. It is clear that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government will never deliver on housing or for renters, which is why we need a change of Government, a change of Minister and a change of housing plan. On that basis, I commend the motion to the House.

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