Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, back to the Seanad. I thank him for bringing this legislation forward. I hope there will be unanimous support for the amendments the Minister is bringing forward.

The proposal we are considering today is to extend the emergency protection periods for renters who have been negatively impacted by Covid. I commend the Minister and the Government on the supports they have provided. While I accept that only 1% of renters have fallen into arrears over this period, it is still 1% of the almost 1 million people in our population who live in rented accommodation now. It is very important that the State and the Government provides those protections.

This is the fourth time the Minister has extended the protections. While none of us wants to think that by next January we would still be struggling with Covid restrictions, it is a very important measure to put the extension to that longer date, so those who are negatively impacted will have the comfort and security of knowing they are protected from rent increases and from evictions.

I commend the Minister and the Government on the permanent changes being made in restricting the amount of deposit and rent that can be required by way of an upfront payment. The Minister is aware that while we are all working hard to tackle and defeat the housing crisis, there have been some isolated incidents where unscrupulous activities were taking place. Thankfully they were isolated and not a general problem. It is very welcome that the restrictions in this regard are being made permanent so that the amount that can be provided upfront will be limited to two months' rent. I also commend the Union of Students in Ireland, and others, on their campaign in this regard. The Bill will provide for a 28-day notice on student accommodation. This is a practical and important measure. For parents and students, access to education is a life-changing and empowering event, but accommodation is hugely expensive. It is an important facility that they would have the flexibility to terminate within 28 days.

I also thank and commend everybody who has worked to support renters during the pandemic, including the staff in our local authorities, Threshold, the Residential Tenancies Board, the Money Advice & Budgeting Service; Intreo offices right around the country; the citizens' information services; and all our local authority members and public representatives. We are all battling this together but it is very important that renters have been supported.

I welcome also the Minister's recent announcement of €75 million funding for the State to lead in the provision of student accommodation. This is very welcome. The Minister has heard me talk about this many times. We need the State to support proper, purpose-built student accommodation at our third level campuses. The €75 million is a very welcome development. It comes on top of the historic €3.3 billion housing budget, which is the biggest in the history of the State, and the ground-breaking legislation the Minister is bringing forward on affordable cost rental.

The Minister understands the precarious nature of our rental market, and that is why he is bringing forward the legislation on affordable cost rental. Rental accommodation has been a market because it has largely been privately delivered. That has been the historical position here, apart from the State's provision of social housing. The introduction of the affordable cost-rental model has the potential to change the residential rental landscape. I commend the Minister and the Government on being ambitious with that affordable cost-rental model.

Reference was made to the balancing of rights between the landlord and the tenants and of the Government support for a proposal, unanimously supported by this House, on a right to housing in an amendment to Bunreacht na hÉireann. This will ensure that going forward, we can have a real balance in our Constitution of the private property rights, but also of the essential right to secure, affordable accommodation and housing.We talk about the residential market and the 365,000 residential tenancies. It is a privately controlled market. There are some issues I would like the Minister to consider as he finalises his housing for all plan and as the Government reviews the national development plan. I have mentioned the affordable cost-rental model. It is game-changing and can deliver secure, affordable rental accommodation. The LDA is being set up on a statutory basis to deliver 150,000 homes over the next 20 years. The Government has committed to 50,000 social homes but I would like the same ambition to apply to affordable housing in the housing for all plan. It is important that we ensure our rental properties are affordable and sustainable and that people have secure tenures for an indefinite period.

I commend the Minister again on the work he has done to tackle the vacancies in local authority and State-owned properties. The moneys he provided, in respect of which there was oversubscription by the local authorities, are turning vacant boarded-up city council flats in my constituency, Dublin Central, into inhabitable accommodation. I thank the Minister for awarding more money, €5 million, only yesterday. It will mean 100 additional flats will be put back into use in Matt Talbot Court, Botanic Avenue, Constitution Hill and Dorset Street. This represents a really welcome and pragmatic use of existing built infrastructure that has been lying vacant shamelessly and negligently. I commend the Minister on providing the funding to ensure they can be reopened.

I also welcome the Minister's commitment to regeneration projects for the inner-city complexes that will have genuine ambition. It is in that context and the context of the national development plan and the housing for all plan that I want the Minister to push the Government to be really ambitious. The economic circumstances are right for it to be ambitious and radical. The suspension of the European Stability and Growth Pact constraints is conducive to ambition. The economic environment is conducive to borrowing by the Government to invest in sustainable social infrastructure. That is what housing is. I refer to social and affordable housing that can deliver for generations to come.

When the Minister is finalising the plans, he should examine the build-to-rent model and the standards of build-to-rent housing. I acknowledge he is already considering these. We understand why the build-to-rent model existed historically but we need to re-examine it. Most important, the issues concerning leases of indefinite tenure and rent pressure zones have to be tackled. We need policies that will ensure sustainable, affordable and secure rental ten years into the future.

I plead with the Minister again on the strategic housing development, SHD, process. I am aware the Government has committed not to extending the SHD arrangements beyond the expiry date. That is a welcome and pragmatic decision. It actually speaks to the fact that the SHDs have failed. They have failed to deliver an increase in housing and, at the same time, they have alienated communities from what should be a democratic process.

I ask the Minister to consider asking An Bord Pleanála to stop engaging in consultations on SHDs. The vast majority of them are being appealed for judicial review. Ninety percent of those cases have failed in the courts. On top of that, the model is not delivering housing. It is delaying the process. Worse still, it is costing the State an awful lot in that it must fund An Bord Pleanála to engage in the judicial review process.