Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I very much welcome the opportunity to speak on what was a groundbreaking report by the Housing Commission. I join in acknowledging the members of that Housing Commission who gave their time and service to the State. While we might not necessarily agree with all the recommendations in that report, certainly the time and effort that went into it was enormous and it is a huge disrespect that the Government has effectively ignored that report since publication.

Listening to Leaders' Questions today, I found myself almost getting increasingly upset at the clap on the back attitude we see from Government week in, week out on its own efforts to meet the huge housing need in our State. We are expected to be grateful and wondrous that social housing output is supposedly back at 1970s levels or back to the early 2000s levels but that is not something to celebrate, that is something to be ashamed of. The reality is that social housing output per capita now is approximately a third of what it was back in the 1970s. If we consider that household size is considerably smaller now than what it was then, our social housing output relative to the enormous need of our country appears to be all the more anemic.

There has been an awful lot spoken about the Housing Commission recommendations and I do not propose to go into great detail on them other than to say a number of key things before the point I really want to get to which is in terms of the constituency I represent, Dublin Central. The Government is not serious about dereliction and there are communities finding themselves increasingly broken looking at properties where there has been no action taken year in, year out. It is because we have a derelict site tax that is not worth the paper it is written on. In fact, it has been designed to fail - that has been acknowledged by the Department of Finance - in terms of the amount of money it expects to raise. It is because of the weakness of our CPO laws and the initiatives that are currently there and how the funding is put in place. Effectively, people need to have that money up front to avail of the vacant home grant and the €20,000 extra for a house if it is derelict. That needs to change. Ultimately, people are at the pin of their collar as it is to buy a house, even if it is vacant or derelict. They simply do not have the money to go on and renovate it.

The second key thing is on the dominance of institutional investors, particularly in this city. We need know we need apartments and that apartments are the future of living in Dublin but we have to ask a serious question. Do we want it dominated by institutional investors or do we want a different model? When we listen to the Government, it seems it wants to encourage greater institutional investor dominance with regard to the ownership of private rented accommodation in this country. I do not believe that is the way to go because of the impact that has in terms of the raising of rents and the potential exploitation of renters. In Dublin Central, 49% of people are in private rented accommodation. We hear all the talk about the first-time buyers grant or whatever but that is not even relevant because you cannot even buy a first-time home in the constituency in Dublin city centre and in the areas adjoining it. We need to see a much greater number of cost-rental and affordable purchase schemes. We have only one such scheme in Dublin Central at this point in time.

The last big point I will make before getting into the issue is on the Government supports to those in distress. It is a pity I will not be able to contribute to the Sinn Féin motion on cost rental this evening, but there is the issue of funding and also the issue of standards. While the tenant in situ scheme is great in theory, my experience on Dublin City Council is that it very much fails in practice because the standards are set so high. It needs to meet the city council standards before the local authority can consider purchasing it, thereby excluding the vast majority of people who go in housing distress. Despite the willingness of the owner of that house to sell to Dublin City Council, they are rejected because the house simply is not up to standard. These people have nowhere else to go and we need to see a much greater investment into the repair and lease scheme because that is the game changer for those houses in distress that qualify for HAP and are liveable, but maybe are not up to local authority standards. This would afford people the chance to stay in those houses.

The issues I want to go into this evening are some we are seeing in the rental sector. Obviously, the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 was specifically set up to govern how rent is set in this country but over the nine sections of that Bill and the 148 references to rent, there is not a single definition of rent. For the vast majority of people, the concept of rent is a relatively straightforward concept in terms of the payment covering the roof over their head and the ability to use the amenities in the house or the apartment. For some, the lack of a definition of rent has been exploited by landlords to put in vague concepts of additional charges. The absence of a definition of rent is leaving vulnerable and desperate renters wide open for exploitation.

A case in point are the School Yard apartments in Dublin 1, owned by the Irish Residential Properties Real Estate Investment Trust, IRES REIT. There are 61 units and some new tenants have been charged €150 in additional common area charges. One tenant, late last year, actually challenged the landlord and it went to mediation in the RTB. Guess what? IRES REIT backed down. Now, our understanding is that IRES REIT has persisted in charging other, unsuspecting renters that same charge. Even though it backed down when it was challenged in the RTB, for others who have not fought back, it has continued in trying to pursue and persist with charging others. It is a reflection of the level of desperation on the part of renters out there that they are paying whatever they are being charged but it is not right. It is pure greed on the part of the REIT.

I have a second example of a woman who came to me to say she was offered HAP at €1,937 per month. That is what the landlord put on her form but, of course, then a secret deal was struck where she has to pay €100 per month extra for storage. She is distraught. She does not have that money but she also has no choice here. If she walks away from that arrangement, she has nowhere else to live because again, there are so many landlords not accepting HAP out there, particularly with rents well in excess of €2,000 in the Dublin city area. That woman has no choice. She could complain and she could get it resolved, but is she going to do that? She will try to find that extra €100 because, effectively, she has nowhere else to live.

Back in 2021, the Labour Party brought forward legislation, a renters' rights Bill, to provide for a rent register which would effectively provide rent transparency. That was never taken on but that would resolve a huge number of the issues with regard to the exploitation of desperate renters out there.

It would also resolve the annual head-scratching that goes on when we see that rents are increasing by rates that are multiples of what is provided for within the RPZ legislation, even when we factor in the share that goes to new tenancies.

The other key and more immediate demand we would make here is that the RTB also has to play a role in publicly flagging to renters when there are landlords of a particular size. We want to look after those small landlords, those who are doing the right thing, but for those who are engaging in egregious behaviour like the behaviour I set out by IRES REIT, we need to make sure that the RTB has a mechanism to flag to the public that egregious behaviour, at least to send a warning. We understand that if there is a complaint and an investigation under Part 7A of the legislation, the RTB has the power to publish the sanction, but if it goes to mediation, it is a secret deal and nobody knows about it. Only the renter who is brave enough to stand up gets the benefit from that arrangement and nobody else. That has to change.

My appeal to the Minister of State is a tiny thing, a drop in the ocean, in terms of the greater need with regard to housing out there. We cannot allow renter exploitation to continue. As it is, rents are exorbitantly high and we have REITs complaining that they are not even getting the market rate that they should be entitled to. We need to put in place greater protections. It is not even talking about tenure or anything else; it is talking about ensuring that a rent is a rent and that this is clearly defined in legislation.

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