Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and the provisions he has brought forward in this Bill. It is a great initiative. It is not the preserve of the Opposition to be uncomfortable with rushed legislation and the perception that this House is being used for rubber-stamping. However, I appreciate that haste was necessary in this instance. This Bill and the Commission of Investigation (Mother and Baby Homes and certain related Matters) Records, and another Matter, Bill 2020 are two pieces of legislation in respect of which urgency is really understandable and with which I am in sympathy.

There is no doubt that the pandemic has caused terrible hardship and that action is needed to address the rental accommodation aspect. This Bill is very thorough and fair in balancing the rights of landlords and tenants. I thank the Minister for his clarification regarding local authorities and Traveller accommodation. However, there is another area on which I seek comfort from the Minister, concerning the rent-a-room relief scheme. I understand it was also raised during the debate in the Dáil. I am supporting a family in an equal status claim where the main breadwinner is without any income due to the pandemic circumstances. This individual had the initiative to seek support from the State and found that she qualified for the HAP scheme. However, when she brought this happy news to her landlord, the latter recoiled and, all of a sudden, manufactured a daughter who needed accommodation and served notice on the sitting tenant. There was a big hoo-ha. The notice has since been withdrawn because there are errors on the face of it and the tenant is now back at the beginning of the process. In the meantime, I have had a chance to look at the matter in the context of the provisions and protections available under the Equal Status Acts.The accommodation in question is a self-contained apartment adjacent to where the landlord lives. When we get to the point of discussing the situation under the Act, his defence will undoubtedly be that it is a rent-a-room situation because of his proximity. Obviously, my argument will be contrary to that. There is photographic evidence and I have gone to the apartment to see it, so I would disagree. However, there is some concern about whether people like the woman in question are afforded the same protections under this Bill. If someone is prohibited under the Bill from going to look for somewhere else to live because of the pandemic, that should apply to everyone in the vulnerable tenant category. I would welcome the Minister's clarification of this issue.

I welcome the budget, which builds on the annual increases of recent years in the amount of State-provided social and affordable housing. The budget is ambitious and will be an excellent relief. Thankfully, there was money to pursue it. I acknowledge how fantastic it is and congratulate the Minister on same. He is building on the years of work done by his predecessor.

Whatever we do, we will rely on a private rented sector. It will always be with us. The issue of landlords was mentioned. The word "landlord" is not a dirty word. There are people involved who are there by accident and others who have invested as an alternative to pension schemes. While we need to support tenants' right to longer tenancies and give them better benefits, we also need to consider the reliefs for landlords. I have been on both sides before the RTB in a probonocapacity and hardships are experienced by tenants and landlords. I urge the Minister to bring his considerations on this issue to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage so that we can have a good debate on how to balance both sets of property rights.

I have encountered a couple of peculiarities in recent weeks. I believe the Minister has addressed them, but perhaps there has been a miscommunication with some local authorities. I am not sure how that situation arose, but I will outline the peculiarities so that the Minister can issue a clarification. People can be struck off the housing list because they did not receive a letter. I have two such cases ongoing. They were suddenly struck off the housing list after it was claimed that a letter had gone out to them and they had not responded to it. There should be a greater onus and burden of proof on the local authority before someone who has rightfully been on a housing list for years has that position removed from him or her.

I am dealing with another situation where a person is repeatedly being told by the local authority that they must be homeless before it will engage with that person. I had believed we had dealt with this issue and were trying to stop homelessness from happening early on, so the idea that a local authority is telling people that they must only approach it when they are homeless seems to undermine the supports and other measures we have introduced.

I have covered everything I was going to say, but I will also ask for the RTB to be resourced. I thank the Minister for the provisions he is making in that regard. He should do so as a matter of urgency, be it in terms of recruitment or whatever, given that there appear to be delays in accessing services.

I commend the Bill.