Seanad debates

Tuesday, 15 November 2016

2:30 pm

Photo of Catherine ArdaghCatherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If I am not mistaken, we are exactly 40 days from Christmas Day. In recent days Sr. Stan Kennedy has been quoted as saying it breaks her heart that up to 2,500 children may be homeless on Christmas Day. This is a real indication of how bad the homeless crisis is. At a time when they should be happy in their homes and celebrating Christmas, up to 2,500 children will be homeless. In launching its Christmas appeal last week Focus Ireland stated 2,400 children in 1,200 families were homeless. This can only be described as an appalling indictment of us as a society. I am sure many in this Chamber are aware of the death of a homeless 31 year old mother of two, Louise Casey, whose body was found last week under a stairwell in a derelict building. Unless action is taken quickly, sadly, more children and their families will end up without a roof over their heads and there will be more Louise Caseys losing their lives in this winter period. As well as her tragic death and the stories of all the children and their families on the streets, others not in such dire circumstances are just about surviving. The severe lack of rental properties means people are paying huge rents and have little or nothing on which to survive at the end of the month. We in Fianna Fáil have advanced several proposals to the Department on a housing rental strategy. We firmly believe that positive action needs to be urgently taken to alleviate the pressure on people and ensure they avoid a situation where they find themselves homeless. Most people are only one month away from a situation of homelessness. One measure we advocate is the introduction of rent certainty regulations that would tie rent to a rental index based on five-year historic rents in each area.

Rent inflation in Dublin and other cities is hammering disposal income and pushing people into homelessness. The introduction of a rent certainty regulation would anchor the rent to the locality and would provide some certainty and stability to the market. In order to comprehensively tackle some of the challenges I have addressed, the supply of rental units in the market must be increased.

We in Fianna Fáil believe that a range of incentives must be introduced, including, but not limited to, allowing property tax be calculated as a deductible expense for the purpose of income tax, changing the tax code such that accidental landlords who bought property between 2000 and 2009 would be able to offset rental income for a period of three years, directing the strategic investment fund to provide low cost finance to people who will deliver purpose-built rental accommodation and encourage landlords to enter into long-term leases with local authorities and housing associations.

Census 2016 indicates that there are 260,000 vacant homes across the market accounting for 15% of the total supply. The vacancy recorded in urban areas such as Dublin and Galway is recorded at 10%. We need to incentivise landlords to keep the stock on the market and we need to ensure that the threat of homelessness is alleviated for people living in rental accommodation. I ask the Leader to invite the Minister to come into the House to urgently address this matter.

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