Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I want to talk about the human impact of the failures in housing. A family were in touch with me recently who are going to be evicted on 2 June. They will be evicted into homelessness. They have been looking for a property that would accept their HAP payment and simply cannot get that. A second family were in touch with me in similar circumstances. They have been evicted into homelessness. It is their second time becoming homeless. These are families that have done everything they can to avoid this. In other European countries they would not become homeless as private renters who pay their rent on time.

We are surrounded by other European countries where if you pay your rent on time you will not be evicted into homelessness. Yet because this Government has failed to act to protect renters from homelessness, we have people becoming homeless. This is totally avoidable.

I wish to mention one thing before continuing and it is an issue I have raised with the Minister several times, namely, the situation with Gaeltacht areas. There is a specific proposal from Conradh na Gaeilge, in its national policy on housing in the Gaeltacht, to reinstate the housing grant that was in place from 1929 until it was abolished in 2009 by the then Fianna Fáil Government during the time of the recession. It was in place for most of the history of the State and the Minister should use the powers available under Acht na dTithe (Gaeltacht) (Leasú) 2001 to re-establish the Gaeltacht housing grant scheme to support Irish language speakers, to help them to live in the Gaeltacht and reverse the decline in Gaeltacht areas.

This Government has failed to enforce its own laws when it comes to rent regulation. We have hard data from the RTB showing that last year rents in existing tenancies, not new tenancies or in new housing stock, but in existing tenancies where people have not moved to and a new tenancy has not begun, increased above the 2% allowable by law in every city in Ireland. This was 4.5% in Dublin city, 5% in Cork city, 5.4% in Waterford city, 5.5 % in Limerick city and 6.1% in Galway city. The law has been flouted everywhere in terms of the 2% increase allowed in rents in existing tenancies. When I raised this recently with the Tánaiste in the Dáil, he basically said the Government does not want to scare off investment. Is this the position of the Government? It will not implement the law to protect renters from illegal rent increases because it is afraid of scaring off investment. Is this the situation?

Let us be very clear that there is plenty of investment in the private rental sector in other European countries that actually implement their own laws on rent regulation. The countries with the largest rental sectors in Europe have rent regulation. It is not, therefore, that the Government cannot do this. It is, in any event, its own law and it should be implementing it. If the Government did implement its own laws on rent regulation that are being flouted now, but which it is not doing, it would help to protect some households from becoming homeless, but it chooses not to do this.

This is a significant issue. Several years ago, there was no clear evidence on this matter. The RTB was not collecting the data on rent increases in existing tenancies. It is now collecting this data. This hard data from the registration of existing tenancies would allow it to go off and enforce the law. Instead, the current situation is that it is down to individual renters to make complaints to the RTB, which will then go off and investigate. How many renters does the Minister think feel they are in a position where they can make complaints against their landlords? Obviously, if they do make complaints against their landlords, because protections for renters in this country are so weak, the landlords can issue a notice to quit to those tenants and evict them. Until that power imbalance is removed, we will not have renters coming forward in numbers to make complaints.

In any event, the State, through the RTB, is collecting the data showing these rent breaches that are putting households under great pressure and making some become homeless. The State and the RTB is in possession of this data that it could use to enforce the law. Yet what do we hear from the Government about enforcing this law? Nothing. I have not heard anything from the Government about why it is not enforcing the law here. I would like the Government to explain when it is going to enforce its own rent regulation law to protect renters from illegal rent increases it knows are happening all over the country. When is it going to protect households at risk of homelessness and that are becoming homeless?

We have children growing up homeless now because the Government is not enforcing its own laws on rent increases and because it is not bringing us into line with other European countries where renters who pay their rents are not evicted. In fact, the norm in many other European countries is that it is illegal to evict people into homelessness. Incidentally, this is no matter what the circumstances. Those countries put a lot of effort into trying to prevent households that fall behind in rent payments from becoming homeless. We are nowhere near that situation. We are in a situation where households that pay their rent on time are evicted into homelessness. Let us not kid ourselves then that there are not things the Government could do immediately in this area, like enforcing its own law on rent regulation. There are very basic things that would actually make a massive difference to families and individuals throughout this country. Go raibh maith agat.

See this speech in context