Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In the first instance I will address the idea of rushing legislation and the question of priorities. When we were originally drafting this legislation, I wanted to draft a Bill that would receive cross-party support so that we could move it efficiently, though not too quickly, through the Houses, given the changes we know we need to make in the rental sector. When I first introduced the Bill, we were talking about giving tenants who receive a notice to quit longer notice periods, trebling or in some circumstances quadrupling the time they have to find a new property to rent. Given the work students had done with all parties, we also knew that we wanted to bring student accommodation under the rent pressure zones to make sure students are not gouged by unfair rent increases.

We also knew that there were a couple of things happening in the rent pressure zones, RPZs, that should not have been. People were citing substantial refurbishments that did not really meet the definition but were just a lick of paint to enable them to step outside their obligations under the rent caps. As we proceeded with the Bill, I saw other priorities that needed to be addressed urgently. For example, under the current legislation, if we did not extend RPZs beyond December of this year, they would fall. In this Bill I have extended them to 2021. That is more important than a deposit protection scheme or defining deposits. I will come back to that piece of work in a moment. We have also changed the qualifying criteria for rent pressure zones and rent caps. Dublin was racing ahead, which meant that other parts of the country could not catch up even though they were seeing rent hyperinflation. By taking Dublin out of the accounting equation, we will now see rent caps extend geographically as well as in time, which is very important.

We have done something else which I do not think has got enough recognition. We are talking about large institutional landlords at the moment. Previously, if they brought new stock to market that would never be captured by a rent cap, they could increase the rent year in, year out, with new or existing tenants, and they would never have to abide by the rent caps. That changes now. For the first time we are bringing large landlords and new housing stock into the rent pressure zones. Tenants renting from them will be treated in the same way as tenants renting from an individual private landlord. That is very welcome and it is a priority. In addition to that we are bringing forward the regulation of short-term letting through a change to primary legislation and regulations which will be debated in this House.

Those are priorities. Unfortunately, our addition to the Bill meant that we could not accommodate other areas of work that need attention and there would be a delay. There was also a delay in the Oireachtas. We had built in time for more than enough scrutiny of this legislation by this House, as I pointed out last night on Second Stage. However, because as a minority Government we do not control the Dáil, we unfortunately lost time. We are now in a very unfortunate position, which we are not happy about at all. I am disappointed that the vote took place earlier today and I will tell the House why. The ban on the short-term letting of homes where rent pressure is most acute was meant to begin on 1 June. However, because of delays it is now set to come into force on 1 July. I worry that if I cannot get this legislation agreed by both Houses and signed into law along with the accompanying regulations, which must also come before both Houses and be signed into law before the end of this month, we will not be able to move to regulate short-term letting from 1 July. There are also weeks in June when other Government priorities need to be handled. We have seen this happen with the national children's hospital, Brexit debates and broadband. Things which we all agree are a priority get deprioritised because housing is at issue. This almost happened last week. I had to make an intervention in the Dáil to make sure we could sit until midnight or as late as possible to conclude the relevant Stages. The House accommodated that, which was a very good thing. I very much worry that if we miss a week, which is the outcome we face at the moment, we could miss a chance to regulate short-term letting at all in the immediate months because of the further knock-on delays. I recognise the very frustrating position in which this puts everyone in this House.

Last night I said that I have a second piece of legislation on rents that I want to bring forward in the fourth quarter of this year. I commit to commencing that legislation in this House so that Senators can do the heavy lifting on the further rent reforms we want to do. They pertain to tenancies of indefinite duration. That will provide much greater stability and security for long-term renters. The further reforms also pertain to tenants who find that the property they are renting is taken over by a bank or other financial institution. At the moment their rights are too ambiguous. I refer also to properties in receivership. We need to address all of these things as well as issues around deposits. I am sorry that the House is in this position. I am very sorry that the vote went the way that it did today. I am worried now, because there are things at work outside our control as individuals. If we do not act collectively, they could end up hurting the people who need us to bring these reforms through as quickly as possible. I am available to debate this all day and all night today and tomorrow. If it must be next week, I am absolutely willing to appear on Tuesday. I still have not secured agreement on my side that I can come into this House on Tuesday of next week. I am very worried about the risks that have been built into this process. I recognise my part in those risks. I will do everything I can to mitigate them.

Regarding the amendments themselves, we all agree that a deposit should only be one month's rent. That has always been the norm. There was talk recently of people charging a deposit of more than one month's rent. That was overstated, as we did not receive a huge number of complaints from tenants in that situation through the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB. In some circumstances we know that a deposit of more than one month's rent might be charged if a tenant is bringing pets into the property. That happens by agreement. There are issues around it which must be looked at carefully. As I said when it was initially put forward in the Dáil, the amendment is unfortunately incomplete in and of itself. Even if I accepted this amendment and put its definition of a deposit into the Bill, there are far too many ways of stepping around it. As we move to define a deposit, we have to ensure there is no way to demand one month's deposit and two months' rent up front or other things like that. There were recently reports in the news about viewing charges. Those reports turned out to be spurious, but if we are going to put protections in place, we might as well protect people in all these other areas as well. It makes sense to install those protections as one instrument.

Regarding a deposit protection scheme, not everything can be a priority. The things I listed as part of this Bill are more of a priority than a deposit protection scheme. According to what we hear from the RTB, this became less of a priority since it was initially debated in 2015. There has been some work on legislation for this, but it may be outdated now because the circumstances in the international financial markets have changed. Previously, a deposit protection scheme would wash its face in that the money on deposit would be more than enough to cover the administration of such a scheme. That is not the case now. If there is going to be a cost to running this, who is going to bear that cost? Should it be the landlords, the tenants or both? We are talking about a significant amount of money, potentially more than €300 million.It potentially requires a new public bank because the RTB is not in a position today where it is able to manage that amount of money on deposit. We then have questions about the administration of that money, who releases it, how quickly they can release it and, where there is a dispute, what happens. The RTB already deals with disputes about deposits, but we are talking about something else entirely. We are talking about a mandatory obligation on everyone involved in renting - landlords and tenants. We, therefore, need to be very certain about exactly what we are doing if we are bringing in a scheme such as this.

When the amendment was tabled in the Lower House, it was withdrawn owing to an understanding of all of these complications and that a second piece of legislation was coming this year. It was withdrawn because of the commitment I gave that in the interim we would do work on this issue and produce a report, given the changed environment, to see how it would be possible to do some of this.

I do not like to speak from personal experience and rarely do as I think we should speak about facts and data. However, I know what it is like to lose a deposit and believe it is unfair because, like most of us, I have rented. For most of my adult life I have rented in many countries. I have seen how rental systems work in four cities. I want to build a more mature rental market and sector in this country. That involves doing things with deposits, which I recognise. That is to what the report will work. It will then be a matter for us, if the legislation commences its passage in this House, to work with it. I cannot accept the amendments.