Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)

I thank Deputy Murphy and People Before Profit for bringing forward this Bill. When we look at housing conditions in the private rental sector, we see that there is an absolute tsunami of situations where people are living in substandard accommodation. I have met people living in the private rental sector who are living with mould and damp. As the Minister of State will know, this is significant because dampness and mould, but particularly mould, have huge health implications, particularly for people who have underlying health issues, young children, babies and older people.

This is important now because there are more people than ever living in the private rental sector. We have never had as many people in this country living in the private rental sector. This results from Government policy over the last 30 to 40 years, which shifted from providing public housing to sourcing housing from the private rental sector through various State subsidies. The Governments of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s - we are talking about three decades - particularly those led by Fianna Fáil but Fine Gael was also in there at different points, made this shift to getting social housing from the private rental sector without making any moves to ensure that housing was up to standard. We shifted to providing social housing, much of which is for very vulnerable people including families and children, through a sector that has had serious problems with substandard accommodation for many decades and which still does.

There is a huge inequality between those living in substandard accommodation who cannot even invest in their own homes because they do not have the finances to do so and those who do. It is very difficult for those in the private rental sector or social housing to listen to all of these advertisements about grants, to see the investment and money going into solar panels and retrofitting homes, and to be encouraged to invest in solar and green measures in order to reap benefits while they are in the private sector and unable to invest in their homes because it is up to the landlord or in social housing, where it is up to the local authority. It has to be deeply frustrating, as I know it is, for those people who are living in substandard accommodation to be told the Government is making a shift to a green society, a just transition, while they are very much left behind.

I want to talk about the idea that housing is a human right, which is accepted internationally. Indeed, the Irish State accepts it although it does not apply it.

The housing plan did not reference housing being a human right once, which is deeply disappointing. Central to housing being a human right is the quality of accommodation and that it be of a standard that ensures people live a healthy life. Much of our social housing and private rental housing, and indeed homeownership, is substandard. There is a large social class element here, involving working-class areas and disadvantaged communities. People who cannot afford to do up their home are living in the worst conditions and then live with worse health impacts. This costs the State down the line in extra health costs.

I will talk about two people from Ballymun I met in my clinic this week, both of whom are in social housing. They are examples of the impact of substandard accommodation on people. One mother with three children has severe damp and mould in the house. These are not old houses. These are houses built in the past 20 or 30 years. She and her three children have been on steroids for the past two weeks because of bronchitis-related illnesses. Her youngest boy attends the respiratory clinic in Crumlin and Temple Street hospitals and is regularly put on rounds of steroids and antibiotics. She has letters, and I have seen them, from Temple Street in which the consultants state her child - her baby - is sick because of the housing conditions they are living in. She showed me the photographs from her home of the dampness and mould on the pillowcases and bed. There are only two bedrooms. They are in a situation of overcrowding. She has to sleep on the couch because one of the rooms is not safe to live in. She talked about the mould's impact on her mental health. She feels every day the house is making her and her children sicker and sicker.

Another mother has children with complex needs related to autism and disabilities. She deals with the impacts of stress and trying to deal with, support and find services for disability while living in substandard conditions. Poor housing impacts their health. We see this compounding of inequalities and disadvantage. Some wonder why we see explosions of people's anger and frustration. Can the Minister of State imagine what it must be like to live in those conditions? It is similar in the private rental sector.

The issue of substandard accommodation, mould and dampness in this country is a crisis we are not giving sufficient attention to. It is something serious we have ignored. We have ignored it because they are renters. They are either private renters or social housing renters and they have been treated as second-class citizens. It is not okay that we allow this to continue. We need major change and major investment. The State has to do it. There is no getting around this. We have to reconfigure how the private rental sector is organised, seen and treated. These are homes; they are not just places where people stay temporarily. That is the very significant societal change that has happened in the past 30 years. The private rental sector used to be a place where people went for a few years, particularly students and young professionals, and moved on. The sector now provides people's homes for life. There is nowhere else to go.

This lunchtime I was out meeting a family who are being evicted from the private rental sector in my constituency. They have lived in their home for 12 years and have adult children in the house. The mother said she does not know where she will go. They are being evicted because the landlord is looking at March and saying he or she wants them out before March so when the changes come in, higher rents can be charged. Even though it will be an illegal eviction, how do we stop it? That is the point. This was and is their home.

This requires a significant change in the culture of how we treat housing and how landlords understand their role. They are not investment assets; they are people's homes. The State has an obligation to ensure, particularly when sourcing social housing from the private rental sector, that people are living in decent conditions. It will require significant investment and change in how we treat and understand housing and the role landlords play, both private and social. We have to do this because it is costing the State massive amounts in our health services and education. Children who are sick are out of school. There is a compounding of disadvantage and inequality. Substandard housing conditions have this knock-on effect. We need a step change in how we treat and approach substandard accommodation.

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