I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
I wish to share time with Deputies Gino Kenny and Bríd Smith.
Rent Reduction Bill 2023: Second Stage [Private Members]
Is that agreed? Agreed.
The skyrocketing rents in Irish society are causing very high levels of stress. Renters ask themselves: “Can I pay? If I miss a payment, will I be evicted?” The housing charity, Shelter UK, estimates that one third of renters lose sleep and one quarter of renters from time to time feel physically unwell because of housing worries, with the price of rent the top concern. That is in a society where people pay roughly 30% of their household income in rent. We live in a society where the average is more than 40%.
Skyrocketing rents are a cause of poverty. Renters ask: “What do I have to cut back in order to pay the landlord? Do I have to cut back on food for myself? Do I have to cut back on food for my child?” The deprivation rate among renters is now five times higher than it is among homeowners and the gap is growing. Back in 2018, the ratio was 3:1 so there has been a big increase within the space of just five years. When rent is included, 50% of single parents and their households are at risk of poverty.
Skyrocketing rents are causing young people to stay at home with their parents for far longer than most would wish. Ten years ago, the average age for leaving home was 19 whereas today it is 28, and people are being forced to stay at home with their parents into their 30s. That has to cramp the style of young people. I get the picture. Parents today are more liberal than they were back in my day, but it cannot be too good for the sex lives of young people to be forced to stay at home with their parents until they are 28 or into their 30s, and that is apart from anything else.
Skyrocketing rents are causing young people to emigrate. Back in the day, young people emigrated because they could not get a job here or maybe because there was a stifling atmosphere in society because of church domination. Today, young people are emigrating because of the housing issue, and the cost of rent is a huge part of that. They cannot afford to rent or if they can, they are pouring all of their money down the drain - it is dead money. The official statistics, in my view, have not yet captured the scale of this wave of youth emigration. The next set of figures from the Central Statistics Office will be very interesting to see and I think they will potentially be quite scary on that particular issue.
Bringing down the price of rent drastically is an urgent issue. It has gone way beyond the Government narrative of trying to slow it with 2% increases. It has gone way beyond even the idea of a simple freeze. What is needed are rent cuts of a dramatic character. This Bill would make it law that the maximum rent would be 25% of median domestic household income. That would apply immediately for new builds and new tenancies, while for existing tenancies that would have to be implemented within the space of one year, and there should be a national rent authority established to oversee the implementation of that project.
The official narrative is that landlords are keeping their heads barely above the water at the moment and they cannot afford to cut the rent. I do not buy it - I really do not. In Cork, the average rent is now more than €1,700 per month, which is more than €20,000 a year. Take out the tax, take out the maintenance, and there is a tidy profit there for the landlord. I do not think you can lose when you have rental income like that. That is before I even speak about Dublin, where landlords rake in more rent from their tenants than landlords in any other city in all of the European Union. I have heard Ministers say, “Yes, but Ireland does not pay the highest rates of rent in the world”, as though that is something to boast about. I will tell them where Ireland does top the league table, and that is on the percentage of disposable income, household income or net income that is spent on rent. That is higher than Portugal, higher than Switzerland, higher than Israel - top of the table.
Some 43% of landlords who have 20 or more tenants have a minimum gross income of €200,000 per annum. Ireland's biggest landlord, IRES REIT, made €22.9 million in profit in the first half of 2022, so do not tell me that this cannot be afforded and do not tell me that 25% is a crazy figure. The 25% is the figure we are putting forward. I think many tenants would say that is fair and it is close enough to the international landmark, which is that people should not pay more than 30%. However, if the Minister does not agree with a figure of 25%, he can tell me what his figure is. Is it 30%? Is it 35%? What is it? If all the Government does is attack the figure of 25%, then all it is doing is hiding behind the current situation, which is more than 40% of disposable income. By the way, for a large and increasing number of renters, it is way above that. Threshold now says that one renter in three is paying 50% or more of their disposable income, household income or net income in rent.
My final point is this. I read in the Irish Examiner this morning that the Government is going to oppose this Bill because it thinks that landlords will cherry-pick and go for bigger households rather than smaller households, and that there would be a danger of overcrowding. That particular point might be taken up by some of my colleagues in the discussion in a detailed way. All I will say here is that the Government has some cheek to talk about overcrowding, when its failure to deal with the rental crisis is forcing two or three households to live together, and I am talking here about young people who are forced to stay at home with their parents way past an age when they should be flying the coop. Second, what about the stories we all hear every day of not two or three people sharing, but of four, five or six people and more, who are strangers, being forced to share accommodation in order to scrape together the rent and keep a roof over their heads? This Government has no right to lecture us on the issue of overcrowding and we will take that point up in the course of the debate.
I pose the question and, obviously, the Bill poses the question: what is wrong with rent control?
What is wrong with making rent, in relative terms, affordable for renters? What is wrong with stopping the market-led approach that has led to spiralling rents? Thanks to spiralling rents, we now have a generation that is not only locked out but is turning to emigration. Many young people now are looking at the alternatives. They cannot find a place to rent and are faced with the possibility of having to emigrate. That is not a good thing. These people are well educated and want to play a role in this society, but because of the current situation, they are being forced to leave their home.
We are facing a crazy situation. In Dublin Mid-West, for example, hundreds of people will turn up to view one house. This is not an isolated situation but is happening right across the country. Prospective tenants who are accessing the housing assistance payment, HAP, can forget about it. They will not get near any available house. In fact, even if they are accessing homeless HAP, their chances of getting a house are extremely slim. If they do manage to get a house, they are facing the prospect of paying a top-up. It can be seen how the rental situation is both spiralling and inflationary.
A number of weeks ago a two-bedroom apartment in Lucan became available for €2,300 per month, but because there was so much demand, the people who owned it increased the price by €150. How can that be justified? That is an incredible amount of money. People simply cannot afford these prices. They are being set aside and humiliated, in some ways, in terms of getting access to homes.
The situation the country finds itself in is related to Government policy, which has led to a lack of public and affordable homes and a lack of rental accommodation. This situation is down to policy. There is a reason for everything. The reason we have such a dire housing situation, with 11,000 people in emergency accommodation, is Government policy. It is not some sort of natural phenomenon. It is the result of the policies of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, particularly the former which has been in power for the past 12 years. Fine Gael has overseen this disaster. If Government was a business, Fine Gael would be thrown out of business.
The system is broken, not only for renters but also for those on the council waiting lists and those who want to buy. Rents in Dublin and across the country are spiralling out of control. What is wrong with controlling rents? The rent pressure zones are only cosmetic. We need proper rent control, as happens in other countries and other cities. Others have introduced rent controls because they know that if the rental sector is market led, property owners will seek to maximise profit. There is nothing radical about rent control. Indeed, it is quite rudimentary and mainstream. It is about controlling rents in certain areas so that they are reasonable and affordable. It is about ensuring corporate and individual landlords do not completely profiteer from housing. If we allow the market-led approach to continue, the situation across the country will persist, not only for renters but for everybody across the board.
I endorse everything that has been said so far. This Bill has a simple purpose. In fact, it is so simple and so obvious that in most countries, it would not be needed. Its aim is to link rents in the private rental sector to incomes, to link what people pay in rent to what they earn. However, we are so slavish in our devotion to the free market under this and previous Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments, and their helpers in the Labour Party in the past and in the Green Party, that such a common-sense approach is greeted with outrage and anger. How dare we interfere with the market and with private property rates, is what we constantly hear. When the landed gentry here, masquerading as representatives of ordinary people, cry foul over interference with private property, what they mean is that we should not interfere with their right to profit from the misery of the housing crisis.
What we see in Ireland is not a failure of the rental or housing market. What we are seeing is exactly how a market works when the State abdicates its responsibility. The market will extract whatever it can from people, even for the provision of the most basic human need, a roof over one's head. In the 1980s, a Fianna Fáil landlord took a court case and apparently it has been written in stone since then that we cannot interfere with rents or the market. People seem to forget that the Constitution also talks about the public good and that property rights are not unlimited. We need to realise the public good means having a housing market that delivers housing for all and a rental market that sees rents have a connection to people's actual income and earnings.
Even the limited rent pressure zones, which were introduced with trepidation by Fine Gael as if they were offending some sacred god of the market, have not worked. We know that one third of all renters pay over 50% of their income in rent and we know from a previous report that one in ten renters spend about 60% of their wages on rent. In an OECD report from some years ago, we had the dubious honour of being top of the global league table for having the largest percentage of household income spent on rent. These statistics and reports, the figures for ever-growing average rents, the disconnect between the wages and incomes of renters and the profits and gains of landlords, both small and corporate, are all a reflection not of a market failure but of a market success. When we do not interfere with or regulate the supply of a basic human good, this is what we get. We get rents that have no connection to people's ability to pay. We get rents that have no connection to wages or incomes and we get record profits for real estate investment trusts and other corporate landlords.
Last year we were told a renter would have to be earning €95,000 per year to afford the average rent in a new development in Dublin, where rents were hitting in excess of €2,000 for a one-bedroom unit, and stay within the internationally recognised guideline of what constitutes affordable rent, which is spending 30% or less of one's income on rent. Not to state the obvious, but the vast majority of citizens in this State do not earn €95,000. This Bill is not a radical or revolutionary measure. It is not the start of a mad campaign to take private property rights away from anyone. It is a sensible and logical attempt to regulate the market, to ease the frustration of renters and to stop the sacrificing of renters at the altar of the free market and the gods of profit.
I want to answer a question posed recently by a Deputy in this House. He asked if there was something wrong with making a profit from your house and my answer is "Yes". There is something wrong, in the middle of a housing emergency, with making a profit from renting out multiple properties because that crisis or emergency is affording a huge benefit to some while inflicting misery and terror on others. It is immoral to profit on the back of an historic housing crisis. The situation is not normal and it should not mean that landlords get to decide what rents they can extract from desperate people in need of a home. What if we were speaking about food? If some had access to food supplies in a time of great hunger, would we say "let the market decide the price of food for everybody"? Would we think it is okay for some to starve while others enriched themselves from a crisis or would we think it was right to interfere in the market to ensure nobody starved?
It is wrong because landlords inherit wealth and privilege to get control over the supply and cost of a basic human need. We must put a stop to the myths that surround landlords with multiple properties or corporate entities. They did not work for it. They did not get it by hard work or enterprise. Most of it is inherited, both the wealth and the ability to accumulate properties. They did not find a cure for cancer or reinvent the wheel. They were lucky or they were privileged or both. We must stop the nonsense that says they should be granted unlimited access to continue profiting from the control of housing or the ability to buy up properties.
The outrage that greets any proposal to regulate or control the rental market is very telling. It stems from the very obvious fact that for many of Ireland's wealthy landlords, their wealth is inherited and passed on. It did not come from any great industrial development but from the control of property and land.
By God, they are determined to retain control over that property. That is why when we propose a referendum to enshrine the right to housing in the Constitution, it too is greeted with outrage that we should want to interfere with property rights. We do. We want to interfere with the rights of corporate landlords and of developers who hoard land banks and derelict sites and with the rights of multiple property owners to charge whatever rents they can extract from ordinary people.
We have a simple proposal today to tie rents to people’s incomes and ability to pay, and, in the longer term, we propose to give people the right to housing, which would force this Government to stop looking to the market for the solution, but rather to control what happens in housing and to link rent, as has happened when differential rents are applied to social housing. People pay a proportion of their income and not an astronomical amount of rent over and above what they can afford.
I thank Deputies Murphy, Boyd Barrett, Smith, Canney and Barry for bringing forward this Bill. The Government opposes the Bill. Aside from its technical, practical and operational shortcomings, it would in all likelihood face a significant risk of legal challenge and is highly likely to have a severely detrimental effect on the supply of rental property in an already constrained market. The Government is working to safeguard and grow the supply of rental accommodation.
I note People Before Profit-Solidarity’s Bill today is identical to the Private Members’ Bill which was debated and defeated in July last year. Then and now, the Bill seeks to address rising rents, similar to Private Members’ Bills tabled by Sinn Féin in recent years. Reducing rents in such an arbitrary way as is proposed in the Bill will not increase the supply of rental accommodation. Supply is our constraint. Rents rise if demand outstrips supply. We need to strike a balance between restricting the level of rents tenants pay and keeping ordinary landlords in the system. Landlords leaving the sector does not help tenants. It is worth remembering that 70% of landlords own just one rental property, while 86% own one or two rental properties. Deputy Barry referenced big institutional landlords, but the reality is it is mostly small landlords. We need residential rental accommodation, landlords and a well-regulated sector. Rental properties need to be maintained and any increase in maintenance costs needs to be accommodated. Costs will rise whether rents are reduced or not.
We should remember that approximately 2% of all tenancies become subject to dispute resolution in the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB. The rental sector is working well for most landlords and tenants. Since 2019, the RTB has express legal powers and is resourced to investigate and sanction improper conduct by landlords, including the imposition of unlawful rent increases in rent pressure zones, RPZs. Landlords can face a sanction of up to €30,000. If we were to introduce an across-the-board reduction in rents, setting aside whether it would be legally permissible, we would see more exits from the sector, thus stifling the much-needed supply we talk about. The 2% cap, where the harmonised index of consumer prices, HICP, is higher, introduced in December 2021, constrains rent increases for an estimated 75% of all tenancies in RPZs. The Government recognises the legal issues at play and introduced measures that balance the need to stabilise rents with the constitutional property rights of landlords.
I will address the substantive issues in the Bill. The Deputies propose in section 2 to amend section 19 of the Residential Tenancies Act to cap rents at 25% of local monthly nominal median household disposable income for households of the equivalent size, or 25% of national monthly nominal median household disposable income for households of the relevant size, whichever is the lower, as determined by the national rent authority which is proposed to be established under section 3; reduce existing rents in line with the cap within 12 months of commencement; and provide that an exemption may apply for luxury accommodation, as defined by the proposed national rent authority.
Notwithstanding the policy desirability or otherwise of setting and aspiring to a lower ceiling on net housing costs, that is, 25% of disposable income, such a ceiling would be lower than the metrics used to assess housing affordability generally. The EUROSTAT indicator of housing cost overburden rate is the percentage of the population living in a household where total housing costs, minus housing allowances, are more than 40% of disposable housing income. Other affordability metrics use between 30% and 35% of total disposable household income but are above the ceilings proposed in the Private Members’ Bill. There is no empirical evidence to demonstrate that 25% is a meaningful threshold of affordability. Housing stress and deprivation are predicated by low incomes and certain household characteristics, not by simple ratios independent of household income.
Such a method of determining rent price ceilings could incentivise landlords to cherry-pick tenants. Large households would be favoured over smaller households, raising risks associated with overcrowding. Single-person households seem likely in many instances to be excluded from the market as couples would be in a position to offer higher rent. Detaching price from unit size, location and quality would have detrimental impacts on the operation of the rental impact. Such impacts could be severe and unintended consequences such as overcrowding seem likely.
Such a system of rent setting would have arbitrary effects. The rent paid by equivalent low-income households would vary considerably depending on labour market conditions, and that variation would not be due to market dynamics, which arguably equilibrate over time, but by regulatory decree.
The measures proposed in the Bill are likely to result in the withdrawal of many units from the rental sector and severely constrain future supply. The proposal that the new national rent authority be comprised of tenant and employee representatives only does not balance the constitutionally protected rights of landlords, nor is there any proposed member with expertise in this area or any independent member.
The Government actions to date in addressing high rents are more comprehensive and targeted than the Private Members’ Bill. A key element of existing rent control policy centres on designation of our RPZs in areas where rents are highest and increasing most. The Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Act 2016 introduced the rent predictability measure to moderate rent increases in parts of the country where rents are highest and rising fastest. These are RPZs.
The Residential Tenancies (No. 2) Act 2021 introduced measures in July 2021 to extend the operation of RPZs until the end of 2024 and prohibit any necessary rent increase in an RPZ from exceeding general inflation, as recorded by the HICP. The Act also provides that rent reviews outside of RPZs can until 2025 occur no more frequently than biannually. This provides rent certainty for tenants outside of RPZs for a minimum two-year period at a time. To address the rent affordability challenges building on foot of the unexpectedly fast-rising inflation rate, as recorded by the HICP, the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2021 was enacted to provide, from 11 December 2021, a cap of 2% per annum pro rata on rent increases in RPZs where the inflation rate is higher. In all cases, section 19(1) of the Residential Tenancies Acts 2004 to 2022 prohibits the setting of a rent that exceeds market rent.
The Government is helping tenants and taking account of both constitutionally protected property rights and the need to secure the supply of much-needed residential rental accommodation. I believe we are being fair.
The Government opposes this Bill. We do not believe People Before Profit-Solidarity's Bill would ultimately help renters. The temporary fix proposed would negatively impact on the supply of rental properties, ultimately building pressure on future rents. The measures introduced by Government to date provide a timely, effective and proportionate response to help all tenants in RPZs by requiring that any rent increase does not exceed the 2% cap. Tenants outside of RPZs have rent certainty for at least two years as their rent reviews can occur no more frequently than every second year.
Aside from the legal issues, the Government believes a blanket reduction of rents will not work in the long term. It puts at risk investment in the supply and upkeep of rental properties. Supply is key to reducing rents in a stable and long-term way.
I thank all Deputies who intend to contribute to this morning's debate. Government earnestly seeks to resolve the problems we have in housing. If any Deputy has a proposal that will help to alleviate the crisis, the Government will consider its merits, as it has done in the past. The Government will implement appropriate policy proposals. I do not see this Bill as an appropriate policy proposal and, as such, the Government is opposing it on Second Stage.
The objective nature of RPZ designations respects the constitutionally protected property rights of landlords and aims to safeguard continued investment in the sector by existing and new landlords to deliver the requisite supply of high-quality rental accommodation.
Under the updated Housing for All action plan, my Department has commenced a review of the operation of the private rental sector. A report on the review will inform policy considerations ahead of budget 2024 and guide the future policy direction for the rental market.
The review will involve public and stakeholder engagement and will take account of the significant regulatory changes over the past several years. The Government will consider and act on the review recommendations and conclusions on how our housing system could provide an efficient, viable, affordable, safe and secure framework, for both landlords and tenants. We welcome Members' input into this review.
Deputy Smith referenced the referendum on the right to housing. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, confirmed before the committee yesterday that we are moving with that. The Government is committed to a referendum on housing.
The Government seeks to pick holes in People Before Profit-Solidarity's Rent Reduction Bill, but offers absolutely no alternative on how to control rents that are off the charts and that are directly contributing to the worst homelessness crisis on record. A record number of 11,600 families, including nearly 4,000 children, are languishing in emergency accommodation and thousands more have got notices to quit and are facing the real prospect of eviction and homelessness over the next period because of the Government's callous and cruel decision to lift the moratorium on evictions. The Government offers no solution. The senior Minister should be here, but that is typical of his studied contempt for Opposition Bills or motions that seek actually to address the housing crisis, contrary to the lie the Government repeatedly tells, that the Opposition only critiques the Government but does not offer solutions, when what we have actually seen this morning is that the truth is the exact opposite of that. We offer solutions; the Government picks holes in them and offers no alternatives.
While I was sitting in the housing committee yesterday across from Darragh O'Brien, where he was justifying the ridiculous and disgraceful announcement that he will give hundreds of millions of euro to private developers to incentivise and encourage them to deliver more housing, I got a text from my office about a family where the bailiffs will be coming around on Tuesday. This is a family where both parents are working, they have two children, and they are being evicted from the home in which they have lived for 13 years, even though they always paid the rent and never did anything wrong. To add insult to injury for this family, the mother works for an insurance company but she works from home. If she goes into emergency accommodation, she will lose her job as well. As if it is not bad enough that she, her kids and her family, who have done nothing wrong, are going to be evicted, she will also lose her job. What do you think she has been doing as she has been dragged through the notice-to-quit process, the eviction process, going to court and facing a proceeding where a judge enforces the order because there is no protection for these tenants who have done nothing wrong? They have been looking desperately at myhome.ie and daft.ie for something they can afford, but they cannot find it. If you go on myhome.ie and daft.ie now and try to find something a worker on ordinary, average income could actually afford, you would be feeling despair very quickly. They spent a year trying to find places. Now, the bailiffs will be coming on Tuesday because they cannot find anything. If you go on myhome.ie and daft.ie, what you will find is one-bedroom apartments for €2,200. That is what you will find in my area: one bedroom for €2,200. You will not find anything with two bedrooms for less than €2,500 and you are more likely to be looking at €3,000. When we look at the average that renters are paying as a proportion of their income being around 40%, that masks the much more grim and desperate reality in Dublin, Galway, Cork, etc., where they are more likely, based on average incomes, to be paying 50%, 60%, 70%, 80% and, in my area, 100% of average incomes. This is what you will see when you go on daft.ie or myhome.ie looking for a two-bedroom or for a three-bedroom property. In other words, there is nothing there for you. Nothing.
I brought up repeatedly the case of another working family who have already been evicted in court, although they got a stay from the judge, in fairness, who gave them a few months, but they have been evicted, they now have no home and they will be out on the street. Jackie estimated that over the two years of the process of them essentially being evicted for doing nothing wrong, she contacted about 700 landlords who had been advertising. Most of them did not even reply and the vast majority of them were completely unaffordable or there was a massive queue. They were wasting their time.
Let me give the Minister of State another example, which I have again brought up repeatedly, of a mother and her child. When she went into emergency accommodation, her child was eight. Her child is now 12. She works and has always worked. She works for Tusla, looking after vulnerable children, ironically. Her own child's mental health is now on the floor because he has been living with her in one-bedroom emergency accommodation for four years. He cannot bring his friends home. He obviously does not want to tell people about his desperate situation. Imagine what that is doing. All these people are looking at myhome.ie and daft.ie and are looking at rents they could not dream of affording. In her case, she has also been knocked off the housing list, having been on it for eight years, because her income went over the limit. She is terrified she will get a pay increase. This is what people are facing. What has the Government offered these people and many more like them? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nothing.
We are saying to the Government to link rents to people's ability to pay. Is that an unreasonable thing to do? It seems to me to be a very reasonable thing to do, yet, oh my God, it might upset the landlords, who are making extortionate profits. IRES REIT is making about 50% on every tenant. I have heard Deputy Healy-Rae in the House bemoaning the fact that landlords have to pay 50% tax. I think, "Really? Oh my God, how awful for you", a multiple property owner being taxed 50% on income where he is doing nothing for it. In normal business investments, a 2% or 5% return on investment would be considered to be doing okay, but landlords feel they are entitled to a 50%, 60% or 70% return on their investment. Why? For doing nothing; because they own lots of property. It is absolutely disgusting, but the Government does not want to upset these people who are disproportionately represented in this House and who will be voting on our Bill because they think it is outrageous that anybody should suggest that the amount of money they can make from the human misery we are now facing with the housing crisis and all those desperate families might be interfered with by rent control measures which are commonplace in the rest of Europe.
In the past ten years, there were increases of 87% on average in rents in this country. Across Europe, they were only 18%. Why is that, Minister, do you think? Why do you think that is? It is because in the rest of Europe they have rent controls. That is why. They have various types of rent controls, they can control rents and they do control the rents. However, all the Government does is tell us the developers and the landlords and the investment funds will not like it, they will threaten to pull out of the sector or the market or whatever, and therefore we cannot do anything. That is not acceptable, it is not a solution and it is not an answer. If the Government thinks 25% is too much, why does it not propose 30%, as Deputy Barry said, or even 35%, as the Government is doing with cost rental?
That said, I received a letter this morning from a teacher who points out that the 35% of his income will mean that even though he is not eligible for social housing, he will not be able to afford the cost rental that is coming in Shanganagh because the rents are going to be over the 35% threshold. He earns too much for social housing but not enough for the Government's cost-rental, so-called affordable, solution. At every level, the Government's policies are failing and leading to misery and suffering for ordinary people who have done nothing wrong because it will not challenge the sacred cow of the market. It is a disgrace and members of the Government should be ashamed of themselves, but at least we are putting forward solutions and will, I hope, get rid of the Government in order that we can implement them.
For the benefit of the Members the Deputy mentioned who are not here, I am sure they will all declare their interests in the interest of balance.
Who will?
The Members the Deputy mentioned who are not here. That is all.
The private rental sector is in its deepest crisis in modern history. Since the Government took office, rents have increased by 23% and are now higher than they have ever been at any other point in history. In fact, they are now so high that not only are many people being forced to remain at home with their families into their 30s but couples in their 30s are having to double up in single-family accommodation and put off significant milestones in life, including having children and getting married. Front-line public and private sector workers with eviction notices tell us they will have to leave their jobs because they cannot find alternative private rental. Moreover, under the Government's watch, like under that of previous Governments, the private rental sector is shrinking. Small, single-property landlords, who often provide accommodation at the middle and the bottom end of the market, are leaving in significant numbers, at between 7,000 and 10,000 annually since 2017, and the low volume of new stock that has been coming into the market, from high-end, non-taxpaying institutional investors, is simply too expensive for even people on high incomes, as other Deputies stated.
That is happening because of bad Government policy. It is not the fault of the Opposition or whoever the future Government may be. It is the Minister of State's responsibility and the responsibility of his Government colleagues. For a number of years, Sinn Féin has been making a clear set of proposals as to how to tackle this, and that proposition centres on three pillars. The first relates to the urgent need for a ban on rent increases, not just for existing tenancies but for new tenancies and new rental stock coming into the market, pegged at standardised average rents, not new asking rents, as recorded by the RTB. We would then like rent reviews in the private rental sector to be index-linked to an index based on wages and the movement of the economy in order that there will be long-term stability and certainty for renters and, indeed, for landlords.
The second measure reflects something Deputy Barry rightly said. A ban on rent increases is not enough; renters need relief, and our preference still is for a refundable tax credit for all private renters to put a full month's rent back into their pocket. It would amount to an 8.8% cut in rents, in real terms.
The most important element of our package, however, is not those emergency measures but a dramatic increase in the delivery of genuinely affordable cost-rental accommodation and increased social. In its three years in office, the Government has delivered fewer than 1,000 cost-rental units and missed its targets, and, as Deputy Boyd Barrett outlined, cost rental is increasingly unaffordable. Prices of €1,450 and €1,550 in the suburbs of Dublin, in north County Wicklow or on the commuter belt of Kildare and Meath are not affordable, and those prices are going to rise. The cost-rental subsidy the Government announced yesterday, whenever it has worked out the details of how it is going to operate, is going to see cost rental in Dublin city at €1,600, €1,700, €1,800 a month or more. For the Green Party, which, alongside us, has campaigned for cost rental for years, the fact it is making such a mess of such an important policy instrument speaks volumes about its inability to influence Government policy.
The real issue is that our private rental sector is too big. It grew dramatically during the Celtic tiger era, by up to 20% of the total rental stock. Half of the people who live in the private rental sector do not want to be there and should not be there. They should be in social homes, affordable rental or affordable purchase. The most important policy objective of any government that is serious about affordability should be to reduce the size of the private rental sector as a proportion of the overall housing stock as we increase public housing. The private rental sector should probably amount to about 10% of our housing system and should not be filled with people on subsidies such as HAP, the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, or the rent supplement or people spending extortionate sums from their wages on rent.
With respect to the Bill, Sinn Féin will be more than happy to allow it to go to Committee Stage, but I might share with its proposers some of our experience of looking at similar proposals. We looked a number of years ago at the issue of unilaterally reducing rents in a number of ways and consulted widely with legal experts in the field. While they advised us it could be constitutional to reduce rents unilaterally, we would have to have an appeal mechanism for every individual landlord who would want to challenge that decision on the basis of it having a detrimental impact on the viability of their business. That would be administratively very costly and burdensome and it would mean many renters would not get the benefit of the reductions if the landlords won their cases. We were also advised that there could be a significant drive in litigation, not on constitutional grounds but for breach of contract, given many of us who are renters have contracts and landlords would be entitled to go to the courts to say their contracts had been breached as a result of Government policy. That does not mean those landlords would win those cases - they would have to be fought - but it could take a year or two both to set up an administrative appeal mechanism and to wait for individual tenants to fight battles in the courts, all while renters would not get the support that is required.
Those are the reasons we did not go down the route the sponsoring Deputies went down. Having said that, I accept their bona fides. They want to do what we want to do, namely, support and protect renters, so we will be happy to allow the Bill to go to committee.
I commend People Before Profit-Solidarity on bringing forward the motion. I have a couple of points I wish to raise in my limited time. At the start of this week, a survey conducted by Galway Chamber showed the real-life impact we all knew was happening, but it was good to get a detailed survey that showed the impact the housing crisis in Galway city is having across the board, including on employment. People should be able to access good employment, but the fact they are unable to access good-quality or, indeed, any kind of housing is also impacting on their ability to access employment. Four of five businesses indicated housing was hindering their ability to hire. The equivalent figure in the tech sector was nine of ten, while 70% of businesses said the crisis was impacting on their staffing retention. We can see this, given that if people end up being evicted thanks to the Government's decision to end the eviction ban, they will have nowhere to go and will have to leave their jobs because they cannot commute, not least because of the lack of public transport.
This is my third time raising the next issue, including twice with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. It needs to be addressed as well as soon as possible, so I ask the Minister of State to reiterate it to the Minister. The latter needs to issue a circular to the councils to say that if a tenant receiving HAP from one council lives in another council area, that council can nonetheless use the tenant in situ scheme. At the moment, that is not being done. A circular to that effect needs to issue as soon as possible.
My colleague Louis O'Hara has been actively campaigning in recent months in regard to an issue related to Cashla, Athenry. Twelve households who received notices to quit in late 2021 are being evicted between February and May of this year. Those tenants feel a great sense of frustration and injustice about what has happened to them. Again, because of the cruel decision by the Government to lift the eviction ban, they are going to be thrown out and God knows where they are going to go. They do not know where they are going to go, so unless the Minister of State can tell us, who knows?
I welcome the opportunity to speak to the Bill and thank People Before Profit-Solidarity for bringing it forward. Rents have shot up again in my constituency, Dublin Bay North. The latest Daft rental report shows people are being charged on average €2,200 a month in an area where rents were already crazy. That is an 11.5% increase on rents compared with the same period in the previous year. We continue to see record increase after record increase in the rental sector, and this is down to the failure of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Government to introduce effective measures that protect renters. It has never been a more difficult time to be a renter in this State, yet the Government seems to be doing nothing to support renters.
We in Sinn Féin have come up with many costed proposals that would go some way towards protecting renters. We proposed a three-year rent freeze and putting a month's rent back into renters' pockets. However, every time Sinn Féin comes into this House and puts proposals to the Minister, he dismisses them as if his own proposals are working and as if record rents, record homelessness and record house prices are all a figment of the imagination of everyone on this side of the House. This cannot continue. The Government needs to get its finger out. We need 20,000 public homes, including 4,000 affordable and cost-rental dwellings, to be built each year.
I again say to the Minister of State that the lifting of the eviction ban will come back to haunt the Government, during the remainder of its time in office and afterwards. Many vulnerable and working families have been thrown to the wolves by the Government. I plead with the Minister of State to take the opportunity to reinstate the ban, because it is the only support people have.
I too thank People Before Profit-Solidarity for bringing forward this Bill, the principles of which Sinn Féin supports and which it will not oppose.
As the Government will be all too aware, soaring rents have caused great hardship to families, young people and those on low incomes. They are causing people immense stress and having an impact on their mental health.
The housing crisis is not only a problem for Dublin or Cork; it is also affecting my county of Kildare. My office is hearing from families who are struggling to pay rent and are being forced to live in overcrowded and unsuitable accommodation. This crisis is not only about numbers or statistics; it is a real problem that is affecting my constituents every day.
I would like to share with the Minister of State the harrowing story of a constituent who was recently evicted from their rental property. This person is a hard-working young adult who was forced to leave their home due to the landlord's desire to sell it. Despite having a steady income, they were unable to find alternative accommodation due to soaring rents in the area. They were forced to move back into their parents' home where they are now sharing a box room with their sibling. Imagine sharing a box room and having to get up to go and work the next day. Sadly, this is only one example of many that come through my door.
The Government's housing crisis is causing immense suffering and hardship, with soaring rents and lack of affordable housing pushing people into homelessness and creating a situation that is completely unacceptable. It is unacceptable that people are being forced to choose between paying exorbitant rents and facing homelessness. The introduction of rent reduction measures would provide immediate relief to families that are struggling to pay their rent.
We in Sinn Féin have long campaigned for action on rents. Our calls have included the introduction of a renter's refundable tax credit to put one month's rent back into the pocket of every renter and, equally importantly, the implementation of a freeze on rent increases for a period of three years. The Minister of State needs to do much better.
Like other Deputies, every day I deal with families who are finding it impossible to find rental properties that are any way affordable. The low availability of rental properties coupled with incredibly high rents relating to those properties that are available often results in these families living in totally unsuitable properties that are not fit for human habitation. I have seen the mould, condensation, lack of heating, broken doors, draughts, etc. This is how some people are living in 2023 under the Government's watch.
There are people out there who are putting up with these conditions because there is nowhere else for them to go. They need access to housing that is clean, is affordable, and gives them hope and protects their health. Daily, we in the Opposition have numbers thrown at us from the Government benches. Some are real, some are aspirational but all are meaningless for those who are living in the conditions to which I refer and who cannot afford to move out or who cannot be housed elsewhere because of the sheer number of people in need of homes. This is the Ireland that the Government is overseeing.
I commend Tipperary County Council on the efforts it is making to assist people, but the sheer number of those in need is overwhelming. Why were no local authority affordable homes delivered in Tipperary last year? We had two agreements under the first homes scheme but that was it. Why did the Minister seek to hide the figures on the affordable homes delivery for as long as he could? The Minister is not only hiding the failure of his affordable housing plan; he is hiding the plight of the people who do not have access to affordable housing precisely because of his failed housing policy.
This Bill seeks to make renting more acceptable, and I commend People Before Profit on this move. We in Sinn Féin have been repeatedly calling on the Minister to implement a three-year ban on rent increases for all existing and new tenancies, including new rental stock. We combine this with a full month's rent back into every private renter's pocket through a refundable tax credit. However, the Government will not do this. It makes marginal changes to its own policy, but with little detail and even less urgency. For the people living in substandard accommodation today who are waking up on their couches because their bedrooms are too cold and damp, how will the Green Party justify the time it wasted, during the eviction ban or in cahoots with Fine Gael? Tell that to my constituents. As Deputy Mitchell said, the lifting of the eviction ban will haunt the Greens right up to the local elections and the general election.
It is only a week since I was in here having done what everyone usually does, namely, checking daft.ie. At the time, there were 15 houses available in Dundalk. There are now eight. I look through the rents and I see €1,650 and €1,900. These figures are crazy. I do not know how anybody could contemplate or put the money together in relation to that. I note there is a house with a considerable amount of bedrooms renting for €3,000. I do not know I could have told somebody a number of years ago that one could be paying that sort of money to rent a house in the Dundalk area. I am sure I could have told people that but I am fairly sure they would have laughed at me. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
I spoke to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage last week. I said that this is an absolute brutal emergency situation and asked when will we deal with it like it is. What we are getting is bit operations, piecemeal actions. We are more inclined to put money into the pockets of developers than get down to building.
The House will be aware of the Sinn Féin proposals in relation to the building of 20,000 public houses. We are talking about cost-rental, council and affordable houses. When we are talking about affordable, we are talking about what really is affordable. We know that we are in an even tighter circumstance, that people are even in a worse situation because of the eviction ban being pulled.
The eviction ban was pulled as the Minister was cobbling together the tenant in situ scheme, etc. The bit I could never understand is that the Minister did not even have his ducks in a row. I accept that Louth County Council is processing a considerable number of houses. That is not necessarily the case in every local authority, and there still are issues. There should not be issues at this stage. We need to ensure that there are not and that the absolute necessary is done to help people who are in a really bad circumstance because of multiple failures on the part of Government over many years to build and deliver houses. If we deal with the crisis in the housing sector, there are multiple crises within that.
We are all aware of the issues. As regards housing, we talk about people with disabilities. We talk about older people. We talk about adaptation grants. We talk about disabled persons' grants. Councillor McGeough, from my party, who would do a considerable amount of work, particularly in the mid-Louth area, was given the following message by Louth County Council:
... as has been the practice in previous years – I am now suspending receipt of applications for the various [disabled person's grant] DPG scheme due to the vast over subscription which exceeds both budgets and capacity to manage and process applications.
That means there is a huge need out there. I know of circumstances where people have been able to qualify for grants and the grants have not covered the necessary works to be done. I am dealing with a number of issues with the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Rabbitte. In fairness, we are trying to circumvent the rules to try and facilitate people. However, here it is the case that we are not looking at delivering on the need that is out there. It is an abject and absolute failure. I have written to the Minister. I hope I will see some sort of action because this is not acceptable in any way, shape or form. As I say, we are talking about elderly people and telling them to come back, apply next year and maybe they will get it two years after that. We do not know what heartache we will put people and families through. The whole idea of this is to improve people's quality of life. The whole idea is to facilitate them staying in their family homes.
Unfortunately, we do not have a Government that is able to offer the necessary solutions, whether we are talking about rents or about housing in general. Many of my colleagues have already spoken about the Sinn Féin policy proposals that we really need to see put in place. We are talking about absolute rental chaos and calamity. Could we not just say we need, at the very least, to completely stall any increases? We are dealing with a brutal set of emergency circumstances. Could we not look at putting a month's rent per year back into renters' pockets? Looking at the type of figures I see on daft.ie for Dundalk and Drogheda - and that is before we get to those for this particular city - I really cannot fathom how people are able to get the money on a day-to-day basis to keep roofs over their heads. The reality is that in some cases they cannot do so.
This circumstances have been made a million times worse by the eviction ban being lifted without the necessary supports being put in place. Those of us who have talked to homeless services, like I have in Louth County Council, are told that it is absolute chaos and that those involved are hoping that we can get through the gap. My office is dealing with nothing but issues relating to people who are under pressure. Imagine how bad this would be if all the elected representatives were not doing their little clientelist fixes.
It is becoming more difficult every week to come into this Chamber, after a weekend of clinics, meetings and house calls, to juxtapose the experiences that we are having with people at the sharp end of the housing crisis and in the rental sector with what we are experiencing on this campus. We are discussing housing in three main theatres at the moment. We have Leaders' Questions every week, where the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste will throw back two main tropes at the Opposition. One is that there are no solutions and that we are not putting anything forward. The other is that we all just object to everything anyway. We are now in Private Members' time, which demonstrates clearly to the Government that the Opposition puts forward solutions. What is before the House is one such solution. It is a Bill aimed at reducing rents that are the highest in Europe. It aims to tackle one of the primary causes of hurt, pain and difficulty. Sinn Féin Deputies mentioned rental credit, which is one of their party's solutions. Last week, we debated a vacant homes tax from the Social Democrats, which is their solution. We previously tabled a renters' rights Bill on Private Members' business. All of these examples show the Opposition genuinely trying to tackle the housing crisis.
It is the third theatre that we find most frustrating - at least I do - because it is not located here; it is located at the podiums outside Government Buildings where certain announcements are made. In this regard, I refer, for example, to the announcement yesterday to the effect that there will be a temporary waiver in respect of development contributions. This is absolute lunacy. It is crazy that this is being brought forward for existing planning permissions. It gives further inducements to developers to build what they already have planning permission to build. Developers are not going under or struggling to make profits at present. They are controlling and setting the provision of housing in this country with the support and cheerleading of this Government. It is supposed to be a temporary waiver. I wonder how temporary it is going to be. Will it be temporary like the eviction ban in that there will be a hard end to it, like there has been for renters who are facing into the abyss of homelessness? Will this be a temporary waiver that will go on and on?
Developers do not come to the advice clinics that I or my colleagues in other parties hold. The people who come are renters, tenants and people facing homelessness. In other words, those who have very little power or agency and who are throwing themselves at the mercy of Deputies such as us. We have very little power to help them in light of the trajectory of our housing system. I am sure developers have significant access to ensure that this further inducement they are getting will not be temporary. It probably will be temporary until it is replaced with a further inducement and another way for them to earn more money. This is cash for developers without conditions. That we are giving them public money without any conditions relating to the housing system is absolutely beyond belief. There is not enough anger about this.
Talk about going back to the bad old days of how we got here in the first place. We can all pick whatever point in history we want to embark on. We know the main sea change in housing policy, when we shifted properly away from any kind of public provision of housing in the 1990s to the developer-led model. We are back here again. Not only are we back, we are further cementing in place the use of this model for the delivery of housing. The headline figure of €1 billion absolutely flatters to deceive. That is on the back of a €1.5 billion underspend in the housing capital budget. This is taking money that the Department has been unable to spend on the delivery of housing and handing a portion of it over to developers. This will not do anything to reduce the price of housing. It will not do anything to make it more affordable. It will certainly not have any trickle-down effect to reduce the price of rents, which is what this Bill is speaking directly to. It is so difficult. There is such a divide between the reality on the ground of where the hurt is and what is happening with Government in trying to provide solutions, because it is just not providing solutions.
We submitted a freedom of information request in respect of the publication of homelessness figures. We asked the Government, the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, what kind of evidence base was used to lift the eviction ban. There was no answer because there was no evidence base. We discovered, from the freedom of information request our party leader, Deputy Bacik, submitted, that the publication of figures of who was going to progress into homelessness was delayed until after the ban was lifted. This is so disheartening. There is no sense that a corner is being turned, as we are repeatedly told. In fact, we cannot even see the corner. We are still heading down the road towards increased homelessness, rents going up and a situation so bleak and difficult that it is no wonder people, including the young and the old - because this cuts across all generations - are looking to leave.
What are people who are renting accommodation or buying their own homes in the major cities or in the area of Dublin in which I live - I will not use the word "lucky" to describe them because they are paying through the nose to do so - getting in return? Are they getting a fantastic public transport system? No. Are they getting a wonderful, world-class health service that is free at the point of use with no waiting lists? No. If their children require services or assessments of need, are they able to get them? No. We have a failing public system that faces many challenges. Underpinning all that, if people have a place to live, they are paying through the nose for it, with the highest rents in Europe. They have to be asking themselves why they are here investing in Project Ireland. They are getting nothing for it. They are being abused.
This Government has money that it is failing to spend. Instead of giving people help and putting in place measures that will reduce rents, and instead of trying to put money back in people's pockets and increase the security of their tenure, it is doing what got this country to where it is in the first place. It is going to developers and offering them more money. We will look back on this period and say that this was where the next proper economic crash was rooted. It is happening now in front of our very eyes. It is incredible that the Government is pursuing these policies at this time.
The Social Democrats will certainly support this Bill proceeding to Committee Stage. The idea of Committee Stage is for Bills like this to be teased out and scrutinised. It is disappointing that while the Government criticises the Opposition for not tabling proposals, when the Opposition brings forward proposals and Bills such as this, the Government does not even want them to be discussed and scrutinised on Committee Stage.
Why, therefore, is it blocking discussion and detailed scrutiny of proposals that are brought forward? It is very important that we have measures to improve conditions for renters and address housing affordability. As part of that, as the Social Democrats have put forward, there is no question that we need at least 20,000 affordable-purchase, cost-rental and social homes each year. This year, the Government had a target of 4,000 affordable and cost-rental homes but it did not even meet delivery of half of that. This is in the context of us having some of the highest rents in Europe and some of the lowest levels of protections for renters. Rents have increased. They have almost doubled over the past decade. We have had the third highest rate of rent increase in the EU since 2010, while at the very same time, according to the census, 35,000 rental homes were lying empty on census night.
The Government stated it has a timely and effective response to the rental crisis. Is it for real? What sort of timely response? How on earth is it effective? Is it absolutely unaware of what is going on in this country? I will draw attention to a few newspaper headlines relating to the rental crisis published over the past few weeks. A surgeon in Galway, a renter, talked of the terror of being lunged at by his landlord with a circular saw. A renter has collected 1,000 l of water from 30 rented households over the past four to five months to highlight the severe problem of damp faced by many renters. Renters in Tathony House on Rathmines Road are being evicted en masse. A woman who has worked 30 years full time in retail is at risk of homelessness for the second time. A renter with two children who is being evicted was asked by Dublin City Council whether she had a car, suggesting this could be somewhere for her and her children to sleep. She had to fight again and again with Dublin City Council to get emergency accommodation. A family facing eviction next month told of the nightmare of trying to find a new home. Another renter said they were facing eviction in May and would not be able to teach. This is a teacher who is 31 years old on a €52,000 a year income but cannot afford rent. Another renter, after three no-fault eviction notices and eight moves in ten years, said they feel their current house will never feel like home. How can they feel any security in that? Another renter said that trying to find a home is a full-time job. This is someone who is a researcher and has had to leave their rented house. We have heard from a Dublin mum of three facing eviction next month who was told to go to a Garda station. We have been told of a Wicklow family facing eviction who said they are considering living out of a storage unit due to the housing crisis. We have heard from a middle-aged renter who said they cannot go back to their childhood bedroom and is couch surfing following eviction from their home of 15 years. That is not to mention the struggles of people with disabilities. When they are evicted, not only do they lose their home but all the supports for which they fought for years through the system to get into places. When they lose their home and have to move out of that geographical area, they lose all the supports that go with that as well as their home.
At the same time as seeing those headlines and news articles, at the weekend we heard of an owner of 43 homes who has left them empty for the past two years to avoid rent caps. Of course, that has been allowed for because the Government has not had an effective tax on vacancy and due to the way it has constructed the rent pressure zone legislation to allow for those loopholes, which incentivise some owners to leave rental properties empty for two years. At the same time as we hear of these real-life experiences of renters, we hear of billions of euro in surplus the Government is sitting on that it will not spend. This is obscene. Renters are being asked whether they have a car; a renter with two young children was asked that. She did not, but the implication, when she asked for emergency accommodation, was why she was asking for such accommodation if she had a car. This was when she was being evicted and becoming homeless. That is what this Government is standing over. Other renters are being told to go to Garda stations or are having to plan to live out of storage units, while this Government is sitting on billions.
What is the Government's big idea for the €1 billion unspent on housing? It is to find ways it can hand this money, which was meant to be spent building more affordable and cost-rental social homes, over to developers. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, who did not even bother to turn up for this debate, showing his contempt for proposals put forward by the Opposition, confirmed yesterday at the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage that no measures at all are being put in place to ensure the reduction in those development levies that are being waived for developers will be handed over to people trying to buy a home. None whatsoever. Why is that? Are there not enough different Government schemes to support developers? We have seen previously that developers promised reductions in apartment standards would lead to more affordability. What happened? Did we get more affordable apartments? We got the exact opposite. The price of apartments went up to more unaffordable levels. We should contrast this with what the Spanish Government is doing, where up to 50,000 vacant homes are being made available at affordable rents, through a government initiative, to younger people who are still living with their parents.
One of the effects of Government inaction on the rental crisis is to ensure that more and more people in their 20s, 30s and into their 40s, and we are talking about hundreds of thousands of such people, are still living in their parents' homes and childhood bedrooms. This has profound effects on their mental health, well-being, family formation and independence. It is leading to a situation where, increasingly, people who want to stay in Ireland, have good jobs here and have skills we need in healthcare and other areas, are saying the only way they can find somewhere affordable to live, potentially, is to emigrate. That is something that is heartbreaking for them and their families but it also costs us something as a country that we cannot afford.
I commend People Before Profit on bringing this Bill forward. I certainly support it going to Committee Stage for further scrutiny.
I support this Bill for the majority of people who are impacted by the current housing crisis. The percentage of household income spent on rent in this State is higher than any other country in the world. Rents in Ireland are 78% higher than the EU average. What does this mean for renters and how does it affect people's lives? It means real stress and real poverty. Households are facing rising energy bills and food costs as part of the cost-of-living crisis but there is no respite when it comes to housing costs.
Last week, An Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, suggested Ireland is short of 250,000 homes, which is contributing to inflated house prices and rents. Last July, the Government announced reforms to protect renters’ rights through the RPZs. The Residential Tenancies (No. 2) Act 2021 introduced measures to extend the operation of RPZs until the end of 2024 and to prohibit any necessary rent increases in such zones from exceeding general inflation, as recorded by the HICP. From 11 December 2021, the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2021 caps rent increases in RPZs at 2% per annum pro rata, when the HICP inflation rate is higher. The 2% cap remains necessary and somewhat effective in the context of fast-rising inflation. However, although helpful, this does not consider the cost-of-living crisis, the energy crisis and general crisis hard-working working-class people are facing in paying these rents. Tenants outside of RPZs can still have their rent increased every second year. In the past decade, average rents have increased by more than 100%. In the past year alone, they have gone up by 12%. They have now reached obscene levels. The average rent in my constituency area of Louth and east Meath is €2,200. You would be lucky to find somewhere for that these days.
A rent of €2,000 a month means a person needs to earn approximately €17,000 a year just to pay the rent, which is more than 50% of the median income. There are often two working people in one household but they still cannot afford the rent and are being made homeless. In many cases, such people are not eligible for social housing supports because the income eligibility thresholds have not been raised in ten years.
One young man from my constituency contacted me because he is in fear of imminent eviction. He was given notice to vacate before the ban came in and is not eligible for the proposed tenant in situ scheme. After coming through foster care, he is currently in a HAP property and has access to two young siblings. This young man is an apprentice electrician earning €400 a week. Although he has been searching, he cannot locate an alternative property unless he pays more than €2,000. Louth County Council has no accommodation for him. His only alternative is to go to the Simon Community. Someone on an average income would have to fork out approximately 70% of that income to meet that rent.
Needless to say, the devastating impact of the cost-of-living crisis, rising rents and low wages has once again been laid bare as thousands more renters are faced with eviction and the very real threat of being left homeless. With rents rising at the fastest rate in 16 years, the Government cannot continue to look the other way as more and more people are forced into homelessness.
This is what we know. Lack of supply is affecting inflation which is affecting rent prices. The rent pressure zones have failed spectacularly to control rents. The need for a Bill that will reduce the extortionate and completely unaffordable rent levels is more than obvious and this Bill attempts to do that. It seeks to bring rents back to levels that will be affordable for ordinary working people by making it law that rents be reduced to 25% of monthly median household incomes with immediate effect for new tenancies and within 12 months of enactment for existing tenancies.
Experts predict rents will continue to rise with no sign of the supply issue being tackled while renters also face knock-on effects from rising mortgage rates. Some 92% of those aged between 18 and 24 are concerned they will never be able to afford a home. As a result, there is likely to be increased competition for rental homes as would-be first-time buyers cannot afford to get on the housing ladder. This is dead money and the likely result is mass youth emigration. The Government is throwing more and more funding at developers to promote the building of apartment blocks and houses - it is not getting the results and the housing crisis is getting worse - instead of building public housing on public land with a public housing company. In Ireland, the right to access decent shelter and accommodation is determined by the private sector and the market. The only way homes are provided for people considers housing not as a basic right but as a commodity that must be provided for-profit in the market. We incentivise developers to build homes for profit by throwing public money at them and we incentivise landlords to provide houses by not saying rents should be linked to what people can afford to pay. We give them free rein to charge whatever the market says they can get away with. Yet, unlike other products where prices are determined by the market, people have no other choice in this regard. People need shelter as a basic necessity to be able to live.
In the past ten years, rents on average have risen by 82%, while in Europe rents in the same period have only gone up by 18% because there are rent controls in most of Europe. In France, further rent controls have recently been introduced whereby if rent is seen to be reaching levels beyond what is affordable for ordinary people, they are capped at maximum levels. In the Netherlands, when rents are too high, there is a legal power to reclassify housing as social housing and charge social housing rents.
On top of this, inflated rental prices are costing the State €1 billion a year in various State supports such as HAP and RAS payments. Public money goes into the pockets of landlords. The public, taxpayers and the State are being absolutely crucified by these corporate landlords who are charging extraordinary rents.
Passing this Bill is a matter of urgency and a key part of addressing this crisis by controlling and setting rents. However, it is obvious that we have to deliver public and affordable housing. Proper resourcing and investment are required to deliver social and affordable housing to reduce the share of the rental market run on a for-profit basis. Here is a solution. Here is legislation. The funding streams and approval processes for the delivery of affordable homes must also be streamlined to accelerate the delivery of these homes. We want to see serious and decent proposals put forward. Let us say, in the worst-case scenario, that if this law providing that rents should be at a level people can afford to pay is passed and every landlord in the country leaves the market, the State should intervene with the proposed tenant in situ scheme, buy the properties and provide a home for the tenants with fixity of tenure. The key point is what will happen to tenants. The right of ordinary people to housing comes before the supposed right of vulture funds and others to maximise their profits. When it comes to corporate landlords, we should take property into public ownership and turn it into public housing on the basis of affordable rents.
The Housing for All plan is completely dependent on the private market and on global vulture funds. These corporations are getting massive public funds. Irish Residential Properties, IRES REIT plc, was paid €8.7 million in rental income by the State via HAP in the first half of 2021. The private market and investors are to provide 83% of new homes, with the State playing a small role and providing less than one fifth of all new homes. This encapsulates the disaster of the for-profit market and commodity-driven approach to the housing crisis and is why the crisis gets worse day by day. The Government needs to overhaul and review the schemes within the Housing for All plan. On top of this, landlords should not control the market. What we need is innovative ideas. We need to expand on what is currently working while also coming up with innovative housing plans to aid supply. Our political alliance does not come first. The people of Ireland must come first. There has been little action on the issues driving rising rents, namely high demand for properties and a lack of supply. Today we can change that by passing this Bill. Where there is a will, there is a way.
I am glad to put on the record that I have been providing accommodation to families and others for many years, throughout all my life. It is a great source of amazement to me that many of the people proposing this Bill are serial objectors in their own constituencies. They object to houses because of the height or the density or because they are afraid. A percentage of these houses will go to social and affordable housing, but they are not happy with that. They simply do not want to see the houses being built in their constituencies. That must be recorded.
I was asked to give an important message for a person. He gave me his facts and figures and asked me to tell this story on his behalf to the geniuses who are proposing this Bill. I will be exact about the information he gave me. He is renting out a property for €1,000 per month. He pays €560 in tax which leaves him with €440. His mortgage is €1,200 per month which leaves a shortfall of €760. He is working in a factory in Killarney town and is trying to make up that balance. He also has to maintain the property along with paying the mortgage. He has seven years left on that mortgage. He told me to tell his story to the geniuses who are proposing this Bill and then tell them what he is thinking of doing. He is thinking of joining all the others and putting his property up for sale and paying off the bank what he owes. Rather than being stuck paying for another seven years, he will pay the bank off in one go. He will not get much out of it but whatever he has he will walk away and allow that house to go into the private market again. It will be one house less on the rental market, thanks to the geniuses proposing this type of nonsense.
As Deputy Michael Healy-Rae declared an interest, I will declare that I am his brother but I will tell the House honestly and truly that I will not benefit in any way from his interest.
I am glad to raise a few matters with the Minister of State. While Deputy Michael Healy-Rae gave an example of a rent of €1,000 - it can be more than that at times in Killarney - in many parts of Kerry, a property will not get more than €600 per month in rent. When that is sized up for people who own one or two houses, when they pay the tax they are left with half or perhaps less than half of that. After they pay the insurance, they are down to approximately €250 or €300. It is not worth their while.
The other issue is that if they rent out houses, they are worried they will not be able to get them back when they want. Something must be done about that. I have already spoken to the Minister of State about it. I know he is interested in doing his best in the brief he has and we will all work with him. However, something must be done about the lack of confidence among landowners or landlords. I do not like calling them landlords. I will call them house owners. They are afraid. They will not rent out their properties because they cannot get their houses back. Could the council get involved even for people who are not on the list? The council could rent from the house owner and the tenant would rent from the council or some such authority that house owners would know they would get their houses back from.
The tax-free payment of €800 that is given to people who accommodate Ukrainians should go to people who are trying to house our own people. It is important.
The strongest argument against rent control is that there are better ways to protect vulnerable renters. One such way, supported by research, is for the Government to provide social supports for renters. In other words, households that see their rents go up could be eligible for tax credits or welfare payments such as HAP or RAS to offset rent hikes. A scheme of vouchers to help pay the cost of moving should also be introduced in Ireland. If rent control is a good idea, why not also control the cost of fuel and groceries? Should such regulations be implemented, immediate shortages would result and home owners would revolt. Instead of cheap fuel and groceries, there would be no petrol, diesel or groceries. The simple fact is that rapid inflation in rent is caused by demand outstripping the supply of rental housing. Rent control makes an existing housing shortage worse. Further, it hurts the very population it is intended to help. Landlords or property owners qualify tenants based on things like income and credit score. When market disrupters like rent control are introduced, tenant competition for what little housing remains heats up. Landlords can raise the standards for qualifying, resulting in less affluent income groups or individuals with lower credit scores being crowded out in favour of higher income applicants with higher credit scores.
There is a better way. As rents increase in response to demand outpacing supply, increase the supply of rental housing. One way to do this is to turn the approval or planning process upside down. Planning permission is an area that needs a lot more discussion. We are talking about houses but we cannot get houses in rural Ireland because young people applying for planning permission are continuously refused. It is outrageous how they have been refused the length and breadth of my constituency in west Cork. There is no problem with sky-rise housing anywhere else, but in west County Cork, you cannot get planning permission for the smallest house anywhere you want to put it.
Promises, promises and more promises. The inflation taxation the Government has taken off everyone is now to be given out to the people and the Government will say it is giving them something off. It is waiving planning permission fees, which I welcome, for people who can build. We sat at a committee hearing yesterday, which the Minister of State attended, and heard about the failure of this Government and the previous one, and failures going back 38 years. I named a councillor who brought to the attention of the Dáil and the Government that a sewerage system was needed. That councillor is now retiring and the Government has not delivered it. The Government came out yesterday saying it will have an answer within a week and there will be investment in infrastructure outside Uisce Éireann. I told the Government two years ago Uisce Éireann was not capable of delivering it in the first place. What the Government announced means houses cannot be built in County Limerick because there are only two or three spots left with infrastructure that can be built on. That wipes out more than two thirds of County Limerick. People need to rent and need houses to be built. I would love for developers, the council or anyone else to build houses in County Limerick and to put roofs over people's heads but they cannot because of the failure of this Government and previous Governments to invest in the counties and rural areas. All the funding the Government delivered in the last two years has mainly gone to the city. Look at the local authorities - 90% of funding went to the city and 10% went to the county. The Minister of State is originally from County Limerick. Do not forget the people of County Limerick or the people in counties all around Ireland. The Government has let us down. The Independents are the only ones who have stood up and told the Government about the failure of infrastructure. If we have infrastructure, we will build houses but the Government does not give the funding so we cannot do it. Wake up and look after the people of the counties. They are real people too.
I thank People Before Profit-Solidarity for putting forward this legislation, which I support. The OECD released its report, Taxing Wages 2022, confirming that Irish workers saw a sharp decrease in living standards last year. It called the combination of a 3.3% decrease in real wages and a 0.8% increase in average income tax paid a double blow for workers. This is not just a double blow for workers, but it is a kick in the teeth for working people. Energy and food prices, rent and mortgages are skyrocketing while health, mental health, community and homelessness services are all at breaking point because of years of cuts, underfunding and mismanagement. The Government has allowed the cost of living, from the cost of keeping yourself in a home to keeping food on the table or the lights on, to outstrip ordinary people's ability to keep up while allowing any supports, resources or services people have to fall apart. Falling living standards and real wages and failing services have been overseen by this Government. That is what people are facing and struggling with right now.
We are in this situation because of austerity, privatisation and commodification. After the 2008 crash, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party and the Green Party, over successive governments and hand in hand with the European Commission, the European Central Bank, ECB, and the International Monetary Fund, IMF, implemented a strict programme of privatisation. Where it could not privatise, it began to pave the way for it, which we saw with Irish Water. There was no central water service that could be easily packaged up and sold off so the Government began a process of metering, centralisation and consolidation to create an entity that could be privatised. When the process of commodification could not take place, savage cuts were implemented across local and national services. What could be was sold off or outsourced and what was not was cut to the bone. The Government put a profit motive into the heart of our services and allowed private companies and private individuals to make money from services vital to people's lives and the running of our State. This was with the complicity of the EU. Where there is a profit motive, there is a motive to cut corners and services. This continued a process of neoliberalism that started in the 1970s and 1980s and looked to move as many State responsibilities as it could to the mercy of the market. Nowhere is that clearer than in housing.
The Government keeps throwing out this fact about building more public houses since 1975. I have read numerous articles on how this is totally untrue. Why 1975? Until the 1970s, there was a programme of public housing in which the State built public housing that was totally out of the control of private interests. Traditionally, the State built over 22% of houses from the 1930s to the 1960s. There was no profit motive or private interests making millions from high prices. It was housing for workers, by workers. Transport, post office, office, retail, hospitality and construction workers were all able to avail of public housing. It meant that if you needed a house, you got one and it was built by the State and the market had nothing to do with it. The only people who benefited from it were the workers who got the wages for the construction and the people who got a home. There were differential rents based on income, which this Bill discusses in the private sector.
Instead, there has been a total surrender of house building to the private market, the selling-off of public housing stock and the privatisation of almost all new public housing through schemes like HAP and RAS. Not only did the Government privatise construction of public housing, it also privatised the provision. HAP and RAS cost more than €1 billion to service. The Government relied on the private markets to supply HAP tenancies and now house prices are at a record high. There is a demographic shift of landlords coming up to retirement so the market is collapsing and they are selling their houses at a profit. That is how we got here.
The Government privatised housing supply and because of that people cannot find homes. There is a need to increase the cap on income to access the housing list. It was increased recently but it should be increased again so that more workers are brought into the net to go on the housing list. If that happens, as it has since January - there has been a slight increase - more public housing must be built to service those people. People cannot come onto the list and then spend 15 to 20 years waiting to be housed.
In the middle of this housing and eviction crisis caused by Government party policies, the Government is committed to the status quo of more private rentals, more private provision of public housing, more profit off rents and more people made homeless. The most decisive action the Government has taken in this crisis over the last few years was to remove the eviction ban. It did not massively increase public housing, control rents or legislate for security of tenure or tenants' rights. It removed a no-fault eviction ban that was keeping tens of thousands of people in their homes. We must return to the State building a supply of housing. Profit and the market must be taken out of housing because they are destroying people's lives and the economy. They are pushing thousands into poverty and leaving thousands unable to have a home. There are more than 11,700 people in emergency accommodation. I dread to see the next figures coming out in that regard. I reiterate that several people have come to our office in regard to housing.
We have dealt with two young men, one working in the construction industry, another working in the computer industry, who both sleep in their cars because they cannot afford rents. One of them actually bought a car to live in out of his deposit plus money he had saved to get private accommodation. He sleeps in Tallaght every night. It is an absolute disgrace. He is now thinking and talking about emigrating because he cannot get a home here. His own family home is overcrowded, with two sisters with children as well. We have the situation of a young woman working in the hospital who contacted us last week after being contacted by her landlord. She has been in the rented accommodation for five years with two young children and was told by the landlord to move out within so many weeks. She rang us and I asked her to come down to my constituency office and to bring down the notice to quit and she asked me what that was. It is horrendous what is going on out there in communities. We have other situations like Tathony House, whose tenants face eviction on 2 June.
The Government should use the billions it has in corporation tax receipts to start a State building company, raise the threshold for public housing and start providing people with homes. These are not new ideas. They would be a return to the policy we had from the 1930s until the 1960s, a policy the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael parties never should have taken away. We need to take the profit out of housing. I support this Bill because that is what it does. It takes the profit out of whether someone can afford to have a home. It de-commodifies one of the most vital parts of people's lives. We have this housing catastrophe because of the privatisation and commodification of housing. This Bill would stop that and provide homes for people, not for profit. I welcome the Bill.
I thank all the Deputies for their contributions, and I am grateful for the opportunity to close the debate for the Government on the People Before Profit-Solidarity Rent Reduction Bill 2023. As my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, stated earlier, the Government opposes the Bill for the reasons he outlined, which I will summarise.
A similar Bill was debated last July, so, contrary to statements there has not been debate on the issue, there has been. Furthermore, fundamentally, we believe the Bill will bring about a reduction in the supply of rented properties, particularly from smaller landlords. We deem that the Bill would be subject to legal challenge in respect of its constitutionality. It would appear Sinn Féin has concerns in that area as well, yet it appears to support the Bill. It is typical of Sinn Féin, sitting on the head of a pin. There is no defined period for the subject of a review, which would normally be the case for any temporary measure. There is no provision for the appropriate size of the property. The proposers of the Bill do not distinguish in terms of income, so someone on a very high income could qualify for the 25% calculation as well. There appears to be no provision in respect of the balance between tenant and landlord. The RTB does not appear to figure in the Bill. The Members propose to set up a new authority but it does not in any way involve the RTB. Fundamentally, we believe the Bill would have an impact on supply. There is the issue as to how "local" will be defined. How will the Bill integrate with HAP and RAS? Fundamentally, we want to achieve our housing targets. We exceeded them last year, with nearly 30,000 units built nationally, including 10,263 social homes, 7,433 of which were new builds. Deputy Joan Collins made reference to that earlier.
Seventy per cent of landlords have only one house - they are small landlords - while 86% own one or two houses. The greater majority of the market, therefore, is made up of people we know. Deputy Danny Healy-Rae made reference to Deputy Michael Healy-Rae. People will talk. Seventy-five per cent of tenants are protected within the rent pressure zones that were brought in 2019. Over recent years the rate of increase has been small. As for people who are outside those zones, and Daft has published on this, they are new tenancies, not existing tenancies. It is 2% per annum if inflation is higher than that figure until 2024, and for someone outside the RPZs, there can be an increase only once every two years. That should provide protection for them.
I will deal with a couple of the points that were raised. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan made reference to people being told to go to Garda stations. I followed up on that case, which was raised by Sinn Féin. That was a mistake. The local authority came back and said that someone put out that information inadvertently. The first place people go to is their local authority. We have set up schemes. We do not want scaremongering. We do not want the view to go out that everyone should go to their local Garda station. We are giving resources to local authorities to deal with people who find themselves in difficulty in the rental market. If they are HAP or RAS tenants, they go to their local authority, and the local authority can purchase the home and keep them in the home. The numbers appear to be quite high. We want them to be exceeded. We have provided for 1,500 homes under that scheme. We want that to be exceeded, and there is no question of funding.
If I may put to rest another matter that has come up, Deputy Mairéad Farrell made reference to tenants living or renting in a different local authority area from the one in respect of which they are on the housing list. The County and City Management Association, CCMA, is preparing a protocol in order that local authorities will interact with one another to ensure that if someone is renting in a different local authority area from the one in respect of which they are on the housing list, the house will be purchased in the local authority area they are in. That is being developed and is more or less finalised. There have been discussions already among the local authorities, including Dublin authorities. Also, a cross-sectoral steering group on acquisitions has been established, headed by a former CEO of a local authority. It involves the CCMA, the Housing Agency, the housing delivery co-ordination office in the Local Government Management Agency, LGMA, and the Irish Council for Social Housing. If, therefore, there are any issues with purchase of homes, that matter will very much be looked at. We feel very strongly about that.
Furthermore, as for tenants above the social housing income limits, a matter which also came up, we now have a bespoke model whereby tenants can go to their local authority. The scheme is administered by the Housing Agency and, effectively, it is up to the local authority to look at people's personal circumstances as to whether they are deemed to be at risk of being homeless and, if they are, the Housing Agency will purchase that home for them. What we really want here is for the funding to be provided, and it is all about supply.
People made reference to the measures launched yesterday by the Government. We make no apology for them. We want further homes to be built for people. Whether the house is built directly by the council or built on behalf of the council by a private builder, the person will not question who built the home. They just want the home. Yesterday we announced three measures. One was the effective suspension of development levies and water connection charges for a period of a year. In layman's terms, if a development is commenced from today onwards up to 24 April of next year, the development has to be completed by 31 December 2025. Deputy Collins made reference to the levies being passed on. This is primarily an activation measure, and the Deputy is probably aware that development levies do not apply to social or affordable homes or developments. Water connection charges do. As for social and affordable housing, we provide specific guidance on costs, and we will track the water connection charges.
We would also like to see builders passing on the reduction in development contributions, but the primary purpose here is to get activated current planning permissions that have yet to be activated and that are live and to get those units built.
Croí Cónaithe was not mentioned. That is in respect of existing buildings and vacant units. We have increased the amount from €30,000 to €50,000 where a property is vacant for two years and from €50,000 to €70,000 for houses deemed to be derelict. It will apply to units built before 2007 rather than 1993, which is currently the position. This will all apply from 1 May. Furthermore, we are going to make the scheme available for rental units. Any individual will be able to claim only once as an owner-occupier, and once for a rental property. This is not a scheme for wide-scale, large investors. It is about getting houses restored and people living in them. I am surprised I did not hear an endorsement of it here today. We are looking at a particular further grant for making the cost-rental scheme more viable. Deputy Boyd Barrett can smirk but ultimately----
I was not smirking, actually.
The Deputy was smiling. I hear people talking. Ultimately, it must be viable for a builder to build and it must be at a price that is affordable for the person to purchase. We are bringing in the cost-rental scheme. Six hundred of those units are already up and running and we have another 1,000 in the pipeline. This new scheme we have announced is now being worked on by a group. We want to see the fast-tracking of cost-rental schemes by local authorities and by the Land Development Agency.
The Minister of State's time is up. I call Deputy Paul Murphy.
The Minister of State said the majority of the market are people that "we" know. Does that not encapsulate the problem? Yes, they are people the Minister of State knows, people Fianna Fáil knows, and people the Healy-Rae landlord party knows. A major political problem in this country is that we have a landlords' Government accountable to a landlords' Dáil. The last time this Bill was debated, it was defeated by only 14 votes. If the landlord Deputies had done the right thing and recused themselves, our Bill would have passed. I want to start by saying that no Deputy who is a landlord or who owns a rental property should be voting on this Bill. That includes one in five of the current Cabinet: the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, and Ministers, Deputies Stephen Donnelly and Foley. The Dáil code of conduct for Deputies states Members must base their conduct on a consideration of the public interest and are individually responsible for preventing conflicts of interest. It is obvious to anybody watching this debate that a conflict of interest exists in the case of a landlord Deputy voting against this Bill. If the Bill is passed, it will impact directly on the economic self-interest of landlord Deputies who are charging extortionate rents. It would limit the amount of rent they can suck from their tenants every month and would reduce the market value of their asset. Ironically, it would not actually have any impact on the case Deputy Michael Healy-Rae was describing. I call on all landlord Deputies to do the right thing today and recuse themselves from voting on this Bill and from furthering their own economic and class interests at the expense of the renter class of ordinary working-class people and their families.
The names of the landlord Deputies who should not vote on this Bill because they have a clear conflict of interest are as follows: the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, of Fine Gael; Deputy Leddin of the Green Party; Deputy Creed of Fine Gael; Deputy Kehoe of Fine Gael; Deputy Phelan of Fine Gael; Deputy Bruton of Fine Gael; Deputy Canney of the Regional Group; Deputy Grealish of the Regional Group; Deputy Shanahan, Independent; Deputy Dillon, Fine Gael; Deputy Troy, Fianna Fáil; Deputy Michael Moynihan, Fianna Fáil; Deputy Byrne, Fianna Fáil; Deputy Haughey, Fianna Fáil; Deputy Lawless, Fianna Fáil; Deputy Aindrias Moynihan, Fianna Fáil; Deputy Brendan Smith, Fianna Fáil; Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, Rural Independent Group; Deputy Nolan, Rural Independent Group; Deputy Kelly, the Labour Party; Deputy Guirke, Sinn Féin; Deputy Stephen Donnelly, Fianna Fáil; and Deputy Foley, Fianna Fáil. Those people should not participate in the vote tonight. To do so is to engage in a conflict of interest.
Imagine the difference it would make to people's lives if those landlord Deputies recused themselves this evening, we passed the Bill on Second Stage and then we proceeded to pass it into law. Instead of people spending 40%, 50% or even 60% of their income on rent while continually being threatened by further rent increases, they could rely instead on only ever paying a set, low percentage of their income. That is precisely the system that used to exist for many working people in the past with large-scale council housing. It is precisely the system that successive Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Labour Party and Green Party governments have done their best to dismantle. It came to a point in 2015 where only 75 council houses were built across the entire State. The result of that mass privatisation policy is the largest and most dysfunctional private rental sector this country has ever seen.
The Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, suggested earlier that the private rental sector is working well for most people. That is so utterly bizarre and out of touch. Not only has it resulted in some of the highest rents in the world, it has caused unprecedented levels of homelessness and terrifying housing insecurity for tens of thousands of families. I want to take this opportunity again to call on tenants who are facing eviction as a result of this landlord Government's decision to lift the eviction ban to stay in your home. Do not let your landlord and this landlords' Government make you homeless. Challenge your termination notice with the RTB, buy yourself time, and demand that the council buy your home for social or cost-rental housing. That is what the brave tenants of Tathony House in Dublin 8 are doing. They are fighting back against their landlord's attempt to mass evict them. That is what all tenants faced with eviction into homelessness need to do. The Government keeps claiming the money will be provided to buy the homes of people facing eviction, so let us force them to put their money where their mouth is and actually to do it. The Government has the money to do whatever it wants. It is rolling in it. There is €65 billion in surpluses projected between now and 2025. That is more than enough to clear the housing list several times over. It is a political choice not to do it. Instead of investing that money long term in public housing, saving billions in HAP and RAS payments, the Government is casting around for excuses not to spend it. Maybe it wants to keep that €65 billion for a future bank bailout or maybe this time it will be investment funds, corporate landlords, or some other wing of the capitalist class that will benefit from it. We know the Government will do its best to ensure as little as possible trickles down to workers and tenants. That is why we need to build a radical housing movement on the streets, in the communities and in the workplaces that resists evictions, demands real rent controls like those in our Bill, and ends the parasitic plague of landlordism that has burdened working people for generations.
James Connolly wrote:
Our cities can never be made really habitable or worthy of an enlightened people while the habitations of its citizens remain the property of private individuals. To permanently remedy the evils of city life the citizens must own their city.
I agree wholeheartedly and hope in the near future we will have a real left Government that makes Connolly's socialist vision a reality.
Some incredible statements were made in the course of the debate this morning. A lot of them were made by the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, who said the rental sector is working well for most landlords and tenants. He also said he felt the Government was striking a balance between the interests of renters and those of landlords. I do not think too many of the renters who are paying more than 50% of their disposable income in rent - according to Threshold, that is a third of all renters - would agree with that. I do not think renters who are paying the average, which is more than 40% of disposable income, would agree with it either. These sky-high rents are causing stress and poverty.
In many cases, they are causing the over-30s to stay at home with their parents. It is defeating the Taoiseach's vision of a greater level of home ownership in society because people cannot afford to buy their homes as they have spent all their money on rent - down the drain, dead-end money - forcing increasing numbers of young people to emigrate. As I stated, when the next official figures on emigration are released, we will see the scale of what is going on here. People are being forced out by the housing crisis, with the rent issue a key part of that.
I noted with interest the comments of the Chair that landlords in the Dáil should declare their interests before the vote takes place tonight. That point was not made by a People Before Profit-Solidarity Deputy; it was made by the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach, Deputy Verona Murphy, who was chairing the Dáil session, and it should be noted. I would like to see a declaration of interests before the vote tonight. Deputy Murphy is right. We have a landlord Dáil being run by a landlord Government. Within society, landlords make up 5% of the population. It is a pretty big multiple of that in this place. Last July, the Government won a vote on similar legislation by 14 votes. Without those votes, it would be a different story.
The point was made that there will be an exodus of landlords from the market if this Bill is passed. If landlords exit the market, that can be dealt with through the State becoming the tenant's new landlord by purchasing the property. When it comes to the real estate investment trusts, REITs, I am not sure whether the State would be purchasing or seizing the property but that is a debate we will have another day with the big corporate landlords. That would provide a roof over people's heads, fixity of tenure and a decent rent. It is what this Bill is about and it should be voted for by the Dáil tonight.
Very briefly, I want clarification. This is a very important point if people have to declare an interest before a vote. For example, there are many retired teachers in this Dáil. If we are having a vote on issues relating to teachers, do teachers have to stand up and declare an interest? If we are dealing with an issue on farming, do Deputies who are farming at home have to stand up and declare an interest? What about fishermen? We have to be really careful about this. I am seeking clarity from the Ceann Comhairle, not from a person who is sitting in the Chair.
I have never been aware of such a procedure being applied. We make an annual declaration of interest, which is-----
Is that sufficient?
It is what the law requires.
It is on the world wide web if anybody wants to see it.
Are we to take it-----
Surely landlords should not be voting tonight on this issue. There is a conflict of interest.
We are not having another debate on this. Resume your seat, please, Deputy.
Surely it is completely inappropriate for Deputy Healy-Rae to vote on something that affects his personal economic interest.
Please, Deputy Murphy, do not cause-----
That is the essence of the issue here.
What is the essence of the issue?
It is landlords voting here in their own economic interest rather than in the public interest. They should recuse themselves from the vote this evening.
The Deputy is giving direction-----
It is a particular class of landlords. It is not like-----
Sorry, Deputy, the whole area is comprehensively covered by legislation and it is operated and overseen by the Standards in Public Office Commission-----
We are only quoting what the Chair said during the debate.
We will get on with it.
I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the clarification.
Question put.
Insofar as a vote has been called, it is deferred until the weekly voting time.