Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House and bringing forward this legislation. We will support the Bill. We have significant concerns about some of the drafting in the Bill and the way it stops short, as we see it, of providing real, urgent and substantial protections for tenants. Nonetheless, the protections included in the Bill represent progress and we are happy to support it.

Any of us in this House, whether as councillors, Senators, or, in some cases, former Deputies or Ministers, know that housing issues such as access to housing, substandard housing, mistreatment by landlords, rent increases and evictions are the hardest issues to deal with. Any improvement for tenants has to be welcome. Section 5 of the Bill with regards to amounts legally payable is important, as are the provisions for students regarding the notice period and the limit on the deposit payable. However, as I believe Senator Keogan noted, it is about the actual amount tenants are having to pay. Rents in this city are 35% higher than at the height of the Celtic tiger. That is the real issue.

I pay tribute to the campaign by Union of Students in Ireland, USI, to ensure these provisions are in the Bill. They are a step forward for students, notwithstanding the fact that in certain parts of the city we have a number of expensive student accommodation developments that were primarily targeted at international students, although a small number of Irish students live in them. There are real issues as to whether those student accommodation facilities will remain as such, given the number of planning applications to convert them to short-term use over the past 12 months. I am referring in particular to Dublin Central, where I am based.

We have a real concern with section 2, which contains the extension on the eviction ban to January 2022. The extension is welcome. However, only 475 persons have made a declaration since the provision was introduced, when every Member of this House and the Dáil could attest to the fact that the true magnitude of the problem with regard to evictions is many multiples of that.Having to go through that bureaucratic process of having to self-declare is a cumbersome process for many struggling and disadvantaged tenants, especially those who have difficulties with regard to language skills.

As my colleague, Deputy Duncan Smith, said in the Dáil, this Bill does nothing with regard to the 8% rent increases being forced on tenants by some landlords. The exploitation of that loophole which exists, arising from the lack of a rent increase from last year, has put some tenants under enormous pressure. The queries to me have been distressing, from people who do not know how they will afford that 8% and are in a situation in which they are trapped in their tenancies. They cannot move to get another tenancy because they cannot afford it. Perhaps they have been in that tenancy for a number of years and their rent is slightly below market average at this point.

The fact we are still within the pandemic and are forcing these provisions on a cohort of people who have lost income arising from the pandemic, but not to all of those who are facing evictions, is to be regretted. Colleagues of mine and others put forward amendments, but the Minister did not accept them in the Dáil. We hope he will accept them here.

With regard to where we are now, we can do more. When the Labour Party was in government, it froze rents. There is a recurring theme from the Government that because of constitutional property rights, there is an inability to freeze rents in this country. The Supreme Court decides on the Constitution, not the Government or the Attorney General, so the Government can be bolder.

Last week, we brought a Private Members' Bill forward in the Dáil, to implement the 1973 Kenny report. The recommendations are around that long, in terms of making it easier for the compulsory purchase of development land. We seriously need to look at that now, because unless the cost of land is cheaper and unless we make it harder for landlords to evict tenants and put in place a system in which there is more affordable supply, we will end up having these conversations about a housing crisis for many years to come.

I share the concerns of Senator Fitzpatrick with regard to the strategic housing developments, SHD, process, notwithstanding it is due to expire at the end of this year. The newspaper reports from yesterday seem to relay a thinking within Government that an initiative will have to be taken to find another mechanism to fast-track planning. What is the point in letting the SHD process expire, when the purpose of its establishment was to fast track planning, to replace that with something else?

We need something different. We need to look at An Bord Pleanála as a whole. I share the concerns about it. We need to look at its design and how it is structured, but we need to allow communities a say in their planning and we need local authorities to have a say. However, we also need to look at a number of the planning regulation decisions made by Government, especially the regulation on the establishment of the build-to-rent model of housing in this country.

The reality of the area Senator Fitzpatrick and I are in is that due to the tax and planning arrangements in place for developers in this city, we will not see conventional apartment blocks being built. We will see build-to-rent. We are seeing some co-living, which got in just before the ban was introduced last December. However, by and large, the incentive to build conventional apartments will not be there because with build-to-rent, one can have a more dense form of development. It is on expensive land, so developers need to make a return. In many cases, it is a much poorer form of housing for residents and often at artificially inflated prices.We know the financial clout of investors to offer rent-free months or to keep rents artificially higher. I urge the Minister to look at the build-to-rent planning regulations and ban these developments because a ban is what we need in this city. Otherwise, we will be left with a rake of white elephants - unaffordable developments that people will not be able to access.