Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)

The past ten days have been a time of deep frustration and nearly depression among people. The omnishambles of the Government's approach to the RPZs in the past ten days has really frustrated people at home. Fianna Fáil obviously has a history in terms of the housing crisis. The Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, was a Minister in the Government that created the first bubble, a Minister in the Government that crashed housing prices around the country and now he is the Taoiseach who has led to the big spike in house prices and rents again. That incompetence has nearly been crystallised into the past ten days. There has been confusion, chaos and contradiction from the Minister and from the Government.

The story about the changes in the rent pressure zones broke last week before the Cabinet had even discussed the issue. The Government chopped and changed its plans on a daily basis. It announced the plans for next March. Landlords listening to that confusion from the Ministers concluded that they could evict their tenants now, rack up the rents before this happens and significantly increase their levels of profit. I have no doubt that the statistics will show that in this past week landlords started to move in that direction, because of the Governments plan.

Then the Government said it had planned all along to bring in this legislation this week. There was no time made available for this. To make time available, the statements on nursing homes had to be cancelled. It was complete confusion again in the Government's approach to this. The Government's approach feels like amateur hour. It is not good enough by half.

We are under so much pressure in terms of the housing crisis that we need professionalism, well thought out plans and a Government that knows what it is doing. This level of instability within the Government is in itself a cause to stop and slow down the building of homes throughout the country. I believe there are serious flaws in relation to this. There are flaws in terms of what is happening to students. It is wrong that students are going to have to go back to tenancies on an annual basis and see those rents racked up. In regard to the no-fault eviction element of this, there is a positive in that up to half the tenants will be covered. However, it strikes me as incredible that the Government is now voting for no-fault evictions when it basically threw Neasa Hourigan out of government for doing the same thing in the last Government. This shows another flip flop in terms of the Government's approach to this.

Not all people will be covered by this. There will be many people who have cancer, mothers who are pregnant and about to give birth and 80-year-old people living in tenancies who will not be covered by elements of the no-fault eviction. No doubt, some profit-motivated landlords will look to put pressure on tenants to push them out so they can increase rents. There are good and bad landlords, and good and bad tenants but this particular Bill will incentivise the bad landlords to profiteer.

We support the rolling out of these rent caps to the counties that were previously not covered. However, the whole centre part of the plan is to increase rents. That is the design of it. The Taoiseach said so openly. The Government wants to increase market activity and the only way it can see to increase market activity is to increase rents. Rents are €2,000 per month on average for a new rental agreement. That is already excessive, damaging and too high. At the core of the project is to increase rents further. That is a phenomenal so-called solution from a Government that has been involved in the housing crisis for so long.

One of the ways market activity could be increased would be to decrease VAT, to zero rate VAT for a three- or five-year period.

That would take €50,000 off the price of a house. It would bring in a lot of the builders who are not currently building. It would make it cheaper to build homes. It would increase market activity and make it easier for families to build. Representatives from Uisce Éireann were before the committee last week. I asked them how long it would take to fill the gaps in the water system that are preventing houses being built. They said they will not have those gaps filled until 2050, which is incredible. I asked the representatives An Bord Pleanála how long it takes on average to turn around an application for planning permission. They said they did not know and could not answer. I speak to builders who say it takes more than a year to turn around an application. We have 4,000 empty local authority homes. It is taking eight months to turn them around. We have 160,000 empty homes, yet the grants to refurbish them are taking forever. The Government is not doing its job. It is damaging the housing sector. It needs to cop on.

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