Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As my colleague said, the dire state of the private rental sector remains a crisis and the Government has failed to grasp it. Speaking to people when out on the doors, those in the private rental sector are fed up, frustrated and they do not have security of tenure. I also end up talking to the adult children living in their parents homes about how desperate that situation is. We cannot ignore this. The facts are all there. You do not need to talk to people to know the truth. Rents across the country are ever-increasing, including across Dublin. In 2023, rents were up 4.1% in north County Dublin, according to the latest Daft report. The average rent ranges from €2,195 on the northside to €2,628 on the southside. Is there any wonder then that 68% of young adults aged between 25 and 29 are still residing in their childhood bedrooms?

Meanwhile, the Department of housing’s homelessness report from January reveals homelessness has once again reached a record high of 13,531 people, including 4,027 children, in emergency accommodation funded by the Department. That is only the tip of the iceberg because of the hidden homelessness does not factor into those figures. This crisis is also forcing too many into overcrowded, inadequate, or otherwise unsuitable accommodation. It is a crisis that drives our youth to consider emigration in search of a better quality of life. This is a heartbreaking reality reflected in the exodus of thousands of young citizens to countries like Australia.

Renters are facing a crisis in the quality of the properties they are renting. Ads are posted all the time with flagrant breaches of regulations visible in the photos attached to the listing. Not only that, but the decreasing standards are contributing to a health crisis. Too many rental properties are plagued by mould and fungus. The recent study showed people in the Oliver Bond complex are almost twice as likely to have asthma. An earlier report showed that more than one in three residents had experienced sewage problems, more than 30% had water coming into their homes, 83% are living with mould and damp and more than 55% have been told by a medical practitioner that damp, mould or sewage is contributing to ill health in their families. This is not solely in council housing but across the board in the private sector as well. I could go citing more statistics, but I must commend the cover of the Dublin Inquirer, which has a cartoon by the Cuban artist Brady Izquierdo Rodriguez that captures the impact these conditions have on residents living in them. There is the fear, the worry, the abject resignation and the perseverance is all captured poignantly by the artist. Unfortunately, local authorities do not have the capacity or resources to fully assess and inspect private rental properties and therefore cannot be effective in ensuring compliance with the standards. They need to be adequately funded to ensure 25% of all private rental properties are inspected at least once a year so renters can be sure their accommodation is safe. An NCT-type system for private accommodation is long overdue.

In addition to ever-increasing rents and decreasing standards, renters are also faced with properties that are extremely cold and expensive to heat. Renters are more likely to be in energy poverty and are more likely to be in a property with a low BER. They are caught in a bind because the landlords will not retrofit the properties without encouragement. Housing for All recommitted the Government to "Implement Minimum BER standards, where feasible, for private rental properties, commencing in 2025", but we have not seen any movement on that yet. We have heard about the so-called split incentive now for years with regard to addressing the issue of how to get private rental accommodation retrofitted. The way the current Government energy efficiency schemes are set up, they favour people who own their own home and can afford to improve the efficiency of it. We are going to see an ever-widening gap between renters and non-renters if we do not address the issue of how we fix that so-called split incentive.

What lies at the heart of this rental crisis? It is a Government policy that favours subsidies to big developers and institutional landlords over the needs of our communities; it is the unchecked greed of investment funds that pay little to no tax while charging sky-high rents; and it is the bulk purchasing of properties that leaves ordinary citizens at the mercy of faceless entities more concerned with profit margins than human dignity. We cannot allow profit to take precedence over the right to secure and affordable accommodation. Fine Gael has been in Government for 12 years and every single metric has gone in the wrong direction. The party has been propped up by Fianna Fáil for the past four years and the crisis has only worsened.

This is why we need a change in government. This is why Sinn Féin is demanding this change. Our motion sets out what a Sinn Féin Government would do. It would ban rent increases for three years to give renters a break. It would reintroduce the temporary ban on no-fault evictions and legislate for tenancies of indefinite duration to provide tenants with the security they deserve. We must accelerate the delivery of social and affordable housing to ensure every individual has a place to call home. When we introduce measures such as cost rental, they have to actually be cost rental. The current models, again, are outside the reach of most workers. Our efforts cannot stop there. We must update minimum standards for rental properties and adequately fund local authorities to ensure compliance. We must put an end to the predatory practices of investment funds by imposing increased stamp duty on bulk purchases that deprive ordinary citizens of the chance to own a home.

Maybe if we stopped treating housing as a commodity available to the highest bidder, we would see a future where people would not be forced to book one-way tickets to Australia and where those who do not have the option of leaving the country would not be despondent, not knowing if they are going to get the eviction notice through the door afraid to ask their landlords to repair anything because they are afraid of receiving a rent increase or a notice to quit. We can fix this, but it is all about political priorities, political will and who Government politicians represent. Is it the people or is it the large institutional investors?