Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas le mo chomhghleacaithe Shinn Féin as an Rún seo a leagadh os ár gcomhair anocht. Ar chuala an tAire Stáit scéalta na ndaoine atá i ndrochstaid agus iad ag streachailt leis an gcíos? Thug mé teachtaireacht láidir do dhaoine bliain ó shin san olltoghchán maidir le cúrsaí tithíochta. Tá athrú plean agus gnímh de dhíth go géar. Ach táimid ag cloisteáil ón Aire an t-am ar fad nach bhfuil aon fhadhb ann agus go bhfuil an córas cíosa ag feidhmiú de réir mar is cóir agus é a rá linn chun leanúint ar aghaidh. Tá na daoine féin tinn tuirseach de seo agus tá muidne i Sinn Féin ag éisteacht leo agus ag socrú réitigh dóibh.

Last week in the Dáil, the leader of Fianna Fáil, the Taoiseach, stated that he wanted to progress the shared equity scheme because he wanted to create opportunities for young people who are caught up in a rip-off rental market. There is the Taoiseach announcing that a rip-off rental market exists. A basic tenet of consumer protection is that where a customer has been ripped off, he or she deserves a refund. Sinn Féin also thinks renters are being ripped off and we will give them one month's rent back into their pockets. This is a tax relief of 8.33%, that is, equivalent to one month's rent paid by all renters not in receipt of other State assistance on a refundable basis. When we have reduced rents, we need to keep them at that lower level.

The earlier speaker from Fine Gael suggested my party's motion sought to ban rents. He spoke about fairy tales. He spoke about magic housing trees. I do not know what the Senator's night-time bedtime reading is but it clearly was not the Sinn Féin motion.

When the legislation for rent pressure zones was introduced, rent reviews were upward-only and limited at 4%. This 4% was taken as a minimum target to be met by most landlords. It says a lot that the former Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, did not even consider rents being reviewed downwards.

Only 7% of rental properties were inspected in 2018, when €2.5 million was allocated. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has said that €10 million will be available for inspections in 2021.Funding is provided on the basis of inspections carried out rather than through advanced allocations. As a result, there is no guarantee that €10 million will mean that four times as many properties will be inspected this year. There needs to be pressure from Government rather than a guessing game as to how many properties will be inspected every year. Sinn Féin has called for a system similar to that relating to the national car test, with certification that would be renewed every five years. A landlord would have to display compliance by certificate in the property. That would ensure that landlords are proactive in getting their properties suitable for renting and maintaining them at that standard. Under our plan, landlords would have to prove their compliance with minimum standards and fire safety standards before a property could be rented out. The landlord certification of compliance is then based on an independent inspection by a suitably qualified professional from the relevant local authority and the certificate must be provided to the RTB as part of the tenancy registration process. Can somebody tell me what is so wrong about that?

As has already been stated, many people feel trapped in the rental market and their biggest worry is receiving a notice to quit or notification of a rent increase. Our motion, if acted upon, would help to give certainty to renters. I noted angry words from the Minister towards Sinn Féin and its housing policy. When people see or hear him in the media desperately defending a discredited, developer-led scheme, is it any wonder that they look to Sinn Féin for real solutions to the problems they, as renters, face? The Minister and the Department should devote more time to offering the types of solutions we are seeking to implement by means of the motion rather than promoting a scheme that gains more critics week by week. We are happy for the Minister to simply copy and paste this motion and to act upon it immediately. Doing nothing, I am sure he will agree, is no longer an option. We desperately need to give renters a break, which this motion does. Simply put, the Government amendment does not give renters a break. It is as simple as that.

This debate is all about choice. Colleagues across the Chamber can tell us about the real problems that exist in their communities. They can tell us about the problems that they experienced as renters themselves. They can either vote for a vacuous, do-nothing amendment or a motion that actually seeks to do something about the crisis. As the old saying goes, the choice is yours.