Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)

I thank Deputies Ó Broin, Hearne and O'Gorman for their support and speeches. I am obviously very disappointed, not shocked, given the oral responses we have had over the last couple of weeks, by the Government's response. The Minister of State says that he agrees with the aim that renters should not be living in cold, damp, mouldy accommodation but he does not agree that this is the way to do it.

Let us look at the reality of the Government's policy position and how it has moved. The Government has gone from a position in Housing for All where the Government, not us or the Irish Green Building Council, said its position was that a minimum BER for private rental property would be introduced, where feasible, from 2025. We are almost at the end of 2025. Fast forward to the launch of the new housing plan, it was repeated on multiple occasions by the Minister that the Government would examine policy measures to incentivise increased energy efficiency in the private rental market. It is meaningless to state it will examine policy measures to incentivise. The Government is talking about throwing in a few more carrots when the problem is we need to regulate. We need to enforce minimum standards.

Whatever about the Minister of State personally, presumably he does not like the fact that one in three people living in rented accommodation are in forced deprivation.

Presumably, he does like the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are going to bed cold tonight, in poor standards of accommodation, in both the State and private rented sectors. Presumably, he does not like any of that, but I do not think the Government cares. This is a landlord's Government. We read the housing plan and see the agenda that is being pushed over the past year to accelerate increases in rents and make rents go higher and faster. We hear all the talk of closing the viability gap but profits of €50,000 a year are already being made for every property that is developed. There are VAT cuts that hand over €300 million to, in this case, developers. This is a Government that represents those who profit from the housing crisis, the big developers and the big landlords, and not those who suffer from it. In this case, renters, who are disproportionately poorer and on lower incomes than people who own their own homes, who are disproportionately colder and who disproportionately have health issues, are being sacrificed and the climate is being sacrificed. I know the Minister of State personally cares about the climate, but going back to look at what Darragh O'Brien said, it is clear that the Government has abandoned any real commitment.

I have had two engagements in the last couple of weeks with Micheál Martin, post his speech at COP, to say this is a great idea and he might consider doing some of this telling the truth stuff, and following the science and leading and all of that, but the Government is not interested in it at all. It is one thing to say it in Brazil, but not when he comes home. These are no-brain ideas. These are simple ideas that improve people's lives. Ideas that do not make people's lives harder, but improve their lives radically and reduce emissions, are now off the table because they would involve some costs for landlords. Again, the Minister of State and the ESRI are overstating the costs because of the grants and so on that are available. The impact on the environment is very serious here. Buildings are directly responsible for 40% of energy usage. Operational emissions from the residential sector account for 10% of annual greenhouse gas emissions.

The Government refuses to do anything in terms of agriculture, big tech and data centres, and is doing very little on public transport. Here is something it could do to improve people's lives in a significant way, make people feel warmer and bring down their energy bills, but it refuses to do this as well. Again and again it is the vested interests at the top that the Government refuses to deal with. The substantial argument the Minister of State makes is that of unintended consequences in that rents will go up and we will make people homeless. He said in his opening speech we would have to increase capacity in the homeless sector. That would only happen if the Government took political choices. Every time we talk about anything to do with the private rental sector, the Government acts as if we should not do anything to impact landlords, who are making record profits because rents have tripled in the past ten years. That money has gone from the pockets of renters, taxpayers and the State into the pockets of landlords. It is clear they are doing very well, but we cannot do anything that will impact them because they might exit the market. The impression is given that these people will take the private rented accommodation that they own, pack it up brick by brick, put it in their backpack and fly away. They cannot take their properties away. These are immovable assets. They cannot reduce our housing stock if the State says it will buy it. If landlords want to get out of the private rented sector - fine, the State will buy it and increase the housing stock. Landlords get to get out, which is fine, the tenant gets security of tenure with the State and the State increases its housing stock. That is a win-win-win we should be doing. It is purely a policy choice to say that if we set minimum BER standards, that will have a negative impact on the rental market. It will not if the State steps in and says it will have a properly funded tenant in situ scheme and will buy these properties if landlords want to exit as a consequence.

On the more detailed issues that have been raised, the only detailed point made is the question of timing and whether this is too much, too fast or whatever. That is precisely the kind of thing we could discuss at committee. We first launched this a year ago and time is ticking on. If that were the Government's real objection, that is a discussion we would be open to. It could be discussed at committee and there could be amendments to make it slightly slower, but hiding behind the Opposition on those grounds is the reality that the Government is opposed to any minimum BER standards whatsoever. The general direction of travel is for the Government to lower standards in the rental sector and not to increase them. It is saying we will have smaller, poorer accommodation for renters. Again, it is renters and low-income people who are asked to pay the price for the viability gap and for incentivising more landlords. All of that is just code for allowing them to make more profit.

I will return to the basic point, which Rory Hearne made well, about this having real costs for individuals and for our society. The health costs are immense. A lot of people are living in very mouldy accommodation. We had a huge issue in Tallaght with a housing development that was an AHB. When you went in, there was mould everywhere. It is horrendous that people have to live in such circumstances. Lots of people have a room in their apartment they have basically abandoned because the mould has won in that area and they have had to retreat out of it. The health impact of that stuff is enormous and the Government is basically saying it will not do anything about it. It will consider offering a few more carrots to landlords, but if landlords choose not to take up those carrots it will not do anything about it. A huge number of people are living in energy poverty. That is going to get worse because the cost-of-living crisis has not gone away. The bills have not come down but continue to rise. Hundreds of thousands of people are in arrears on their gas and electricity bills. Instead of taking an easy win and doing something for all these people in the private rented sector, and then doing the same with the State's housing stock, the Government is refusing to do it because it would be some sort of imposition on landlords.

The basic point is you can throw all the carrots you like at landlords, but there is definitely a whole group of landlords who just want the money to roll in. They do not want to do anything or actually have to do any work. That is a fundamental problem. We have to either compel those landlords to do work to ensure their tenants get to live in a basic standard of decent-quality accommodation or, if they are not willing to do it, there is no problem, but they then do not belong in this business and the State will buy the property off them and provide appropriate accommodation. Members should expect to get lots of emails over the coming days to encourage people to vote in favour of this Bill.

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