Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I listened carefully to what the Senator said. The previous rent review of June 2010 resulted in reducing national rents by a weighted average of 4%, accruing annualised savings of €20 million. That was generally regarded by almost everybody as being quite a successful undertaking because, from the point of view of people on a social welfare income and those who are renting in the private market, it helped to reduce rents. Since that time we have had a catastrophic collapse in the construction industry, to which Senator Mooney referred. I ask Sinn Féin is it unreasonable to expect some better value from rents in the context of the well documented fall in property values in the country? I know that the two are not necessarily absolutely related because there are landlords who bought their homes to rent many years ago at very attractive prices and they may have no mortgages on them.

Sinn Féin references in its motion its discussions with the Irish Property Owners' Association - that is my understanding. The Senator was speaking about that association and that Sinn Féin is concerned about buy to let landlords. Everybody is concerned about buy to let landlords because quite a number of them were some of the people whom Senator Mooney referenced, people who were beguiled into investing in property and perhaps did not think it out such was the property bubble in this country. Sinn Féin is a party that does not want property taxes and yet it wants increased rents to get landlords a higher income. That is basically what it is saying.