Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin commends the work of the committee and calls on the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, to act on the recommendations and bring forward the necessary legislation needed to enact them. Rental figures released today by daft.ieshow that rental pressure zones are not working, since they have not even managed to keep rents stable. These pressure zones were meant to be the Government’s great plan to at least cool the rental market before the bigger issues of supply and freeing up units could be addressed. Without being glib, the sticking plaster solution has not worked.

Several points jump out from daft.iereport. Rents have now risen for 21 consecutive quarters and show no sign of stopping. The quarterly increase in rents between June and September was 3.4%, the fourth largest recorded. Four of the five largest recorded quarterly increases in rents have happened since the start of 2016. From the data in this report, it is clear that landlords are breaching the 4% cap set by the current legislation on a wholesale basis. Unfortunately, as with most issues within the private rented sector, the tenant is responsible for ensuring that landlords comply with the new legislation.

The figures for Galway are disgraceful. Rents in County Galway have risen 14.5% in the last year. A search for three bed properties available in Galway city today on daft.ieshows landlords are seeking up to €2,200 a month for a very ordinary three bedroom house, with seven beds in the three rooms. Recent comments by the Taoiseach on the ability of people on average wage to buy what he called an affordable house of €315,000 show how out of touch he and Government are from the reality of the national housing crisis. I note that Fianna Fáil has commented this morning on these figures calling them “scandalous”, yet at the same time it has opposed every effort by Sinn Féin to address the underlying issues of soaring rents and family evictions. Sinn Féin has introduced numerous Bills and proposals in these Houses on rent control and rent certainty, homelessness, protecting mortgage holders and so on, but the real scandal is that Fianna Fáil has supported Fine Gael to defeat these measures every time. Our proposals would have saved young families thousands of euros, allowing them to save for deposits and give them some hope that they may at some stage escape the clutches of greedy landlords. Fianna Fáil is as much to blame for this appalling situation as Fine Gael.

The report we are discussing from the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government came about due to a chronic shortage of properties in the private rental sector. Landlords renting properties on short-term lease platforms have seen their profits increase greatly while the available rental stock for ordinary citizens and families has dramatically decreased. The impact of short-term lettings on the rental market is not only seen in Dublin, it is a nationwide phenomenon. The submission of the Simon Communities to the joint committee states: “The complete lack of affordable housing across the Irish housing system is at the core of the housing and homelessness crisis." It notes that:

Ireland’s private rented sector is not working for private renters or recipients of State housing payments. As rents spiral upwards and supply falls, rent supplement and HAP payments are becoming increasingly ineffectual leaving recipients locked out of a crowded and increasingly competitive market, increasing their risk of entering or re-entering homelessness.

The approximate scale of short term rentals in Ireland can be estimated by conducting an Airbnb letting availability search in key locations nationwide, as the Simon Communities did for the week of 19 - 23 June. Looking at Galway for that week, for instance, there were 185 "entire place", or full house, rentals available, representing only 27% of total listings, which suggests there were 685 such properties in Galway alone.