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

I thank Senator Warfield for proposing these amendments and those who spoke on them. I will deal with the issues raised and speak to amendments Nos. 3 to 5, inclusive, as they are related and grouped together. On the ability to serve a notice to quit when somebody wants to sell a property, we going over ground we have covered already in the Seanad. It is the case that if someone has a lease with a landlord, it is the same as a commercial lease. That cannot be torn up by the landlord by serving a notice to quit on the tenant. It operates in exactly the same way as a lease in the commercial sector in that regard.

Legal advice was given by the Attorney General's office and I will go through the four elements of it again. The first is that this was not constitutional because it was seen as an unjust attack on one subgroup of a sector regarding a problem in society that is larger than this one particular issue. I have had conversations with the various non-governmental organisations, the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, and the Dublin Region Homeless Executive on capturing accurate data. According to the RTB, arrears is a bigger issue and we should be doing more on the arrears side. We are now engaging with the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to do that. Even if this proposal was constitutional, it could not be retrospective. We would not, therefore, be able to introduce a temporary measure to protect current tenants, as members of Sinn Féin keep saying in the Dáil. It would not work in that way.

Even if this proposal was constitutional and retrospective, would it be a good policy decision? I do not believe it would be. Many landlords are accidental landlords who have been in arrears for a long time. They are now reaching the point at which they can sell their properties and pay off their debts. If we were to enforce this provision, we have evidence that indicates that as much as 30% of the value of the property, as opposed to the profit on it, would be lost. In order to help one family or individual, which is a noble intention, we would be hurting another one. That would not be acceptable when introducing a new policy. Furthermore, even if we decided that was still okay from a policy point of view, we would not solve the problem because the person buying the home could then serve a notice to quit. We would move the obligation to get the tenant out of the property from the professional landlord or person who has been operating as a landlord for a number of years to the new buyer or new family. We could have circumstances where a young family is trying to serve a notice to quit on a family living in a house. That is not the right thing to do. It does not solve the problem because a notice to quit can still be served by the person who has bought the property. It displaces the problem and places an unfair burden on the people buying. The societal risks of that are very great.

Notwithstanding that, we are making considerable improvements in the notice to quit periods that will be allowed. I mentioned the figures previously. If a person has been living in the property for more than a year, the notice to quit period is currently 42 days. Once this legislation has been signed into law by the President, the notice to quit period for such tenants will be 128 days. That is a significant improvement and the right decision to make. Where people have been renting an apartment or house for less than six months, the period is too short to lock either side into a further three months by extending the notice to quit period for this particular cohort of people. In the case of people who have been renting for six months or or more, the notice to quit period will increase from 35 days to 90 days. For those who have been renting one year or more, it increases from 42 days to 128 days, and it increases as the period living in the property increases. A notice period of 28 days for those renting for less than six months is considered fair for both sides of the equation.

Co-living is not a response to the housing shortage. It has been well flagged in discussions as a way to allow for greater choice in the rental sector. Everyone should have choice when it comes to housing. It should not be the privilege of those who have more money or different circumstances. Too many people are trapped in accommodation circumstances in which they should not be trapped. This is about providing choice. When we are younger we make sacrifices because we have different priorities. We spend our money differently from the way we might spend it when we are older. We work in different jobs. We put up with things we would not put up with when we are older and have families and different responsibilities. At certain times in our lives, we want live in the city centre and enjoy what that brings. At other times in our lives, we might want to move away form the city centre and enjoy what that brings. We must recognise that there is a large mobile workforce coming to work and live here for six months or one or two years. They want an accommodation option as well. They are not coming here to live long term. They do not necessarily want to move into a four-bedroom semi-detached house with people they do not know, nor do they want the isolation of a studio or one-bedroom apartment. That is why co-living his is another option that will be available.

One application for co-living accommodation has been submitted. I cannot speak about individual applications but we should not be judging this new concept, which was welcomed by all the experts at the time and is still welcomed today, based on one application alone. We are talking about six to eight units of private accommodation with private bathrooms and shared communal facilities. There are very clear guidelines on this and they were developed taking account of best practice abroad. That is what we are trying to do. People are judging this based on one application. They are making this a political issue and in doing so they are reducing choice for people who are coming to work here or starting their first job. Standards are improving for rental accommodation. In the previous amendments, we spoke about how we can improve rental standards. It is inconsistent to then say that we are trying to lower standards in a separate move. That is not what this is about. It is about choice.

Regarding definitions around family members and what is and should not be possible, we should not change the definition of what a family member is in the legislation. If someone has a second property, there are very legitimate reasons he or she might want to give it over to a very close family member. This would reduce the burden on the State and potentially free up other property elsewhere for someone else to rent. If we consider the Bill rather than the amendment only, it contains new protections in cases where someone seeks to abuse the section 34 right to move a family member into a home. Where this right is abused, the RTB can take new sanctions against the landlord. There is also a new right for the tenant to be rehoused in that home if the relative moving in has not lived there for a sufficient period as per the Bill. If Members read the detail of the Bill, they will note those new protections have been put in place, which are welcome.