Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 17 February 2022
89. Deputy Steven Matthews asked the Minister for Justice if her attention has been drawn to reports of sex for rent cases as reported in the media (details supplied); if specific legislation or measures to address this crime are being considered; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8274/22]
View answerI want to ask the Minister if her attention has been drawn to recent media reports of sex for rent cases. I refer particularly to reports by a journalist in the Irish Examiner, Ann Murphy. Are there specific measures or legislation to address this crime, if it is a crime? I am not sure if it is and seek the Minister's clarification. Is she considering measures to address the matter?
I am aware of reports of the nature referred to by the Deputy. I assure him that the matter is being taken very seriously and is under consideration by the Government. I cannot imagine the level of distress that somebody must feel, particularly a tenant, where people are in a vulnerable position or living on their own and find themselves not being able to pay their rent. On top of that, they find themselves being propositioned or put into a very difficult situation where they feel they may not have any option or very few options but to leave and become homeless or for that to have further consequences as well. It is very upsetting to even think about it. The fact is that this is happening, where people are already tenants, where there are advertisements where people are not saying it explicitly but are referencing exactly what they are willing to do for a reduced rate. Any type of behaviour like this by landlords seeking to use their position to prey on vulnerable people is completely unacceptable. It cannot be tolerated. It is an appalling abuse of power by people with really unscrupulous morals.
The Deputy may be aware that my colleague, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, and I are receiving advice from the Attorney General on this subject at present. Both of our Departments are considering how we can take on board that advice and how we can go from here to try to address this issue. We will look at all of the potential elements involved here such as the policy aspect of discrimination relating to such advertisements. We will engage with relevant Departments to consider all possible avenues to address this unacceptable behaviour.
The Government is totally committed to preventing and addressing sexual abuse and gender-based violence in all its forms and it is important for me to say that the laws surrounding sexual offences have been significantly strengthened in recent years, including with the introduction of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017. The legislation now makes it abundantly clear that consent must be freely and voluntarily given. In other words, submission when a person feels forced or has no other choice is not the same as consent. We have to be clear on that. While the right approach to dealing with this issue needs to be carefully considered, I can assure the Deputy that my colleagues and I are looking at this and plan to take action on it. It is complex but we want to try to find a way forward.
I thank the Minister. She covered the issue well. It is morally reprehensible for someone to engage in this type of practice, to exploit somebody. We are all aware of the cost of rent out there. We are aware of the pressures on people from rent. For someone to take advantage of that and try to exploit somebody - we need to take urgent action on this. I do not know how prevalent this is but that it can exist at all is something we need to address. The Minister will be aware that this came to me as a housing matter in my role as Chair of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage. We were not then sure whether it was a justice matter or one we would have to deal with through rental tenancies. We referred it back to the Minister. I look forward to hearing about the updates the Ministers, Deputies McEntee and Darragh O'Brien, receive on this from the Attorney General. We must act on this swiftly.
The fact of the matter is that there is no law against this at the moment, unfortunately. It is difficult to know the prevalence of it. I know in the UK a survey was conducted last year in which 40,000 women responded that they had found themselves in this position within a period of about three months. That is really an unbelievable figure and I do not know how it corresponds to our own situation here. There had been a suggestion that there could be a survey, perhaps through the Rental Tenancies Board, RTB, which conducts annual surveys of landlords and tenants, to see if we could get a figure. It was perhaps felt that this is a very personal and difficult thing for somebody simply to respond to in a survey when he or she is already a tenant. Nor would it cover all situations, for example where somebody is renting a room. It makes it difficult to respond to.
In the UK, the law that does exist comes under prostitution legislation. I think we need to be very careful of the laws and language we use here and how we refer to it. That is the work we are doing with the Attorney General at the moment, to see where this could fit in to legislation here. It is not a criminal offence. I would like to see it as a criminal offence. It is appalling behaviour, the worst type of preying on victims and we need to make sure we stamp it out. However we do that, I hope we will be able to come back to the Deputy as quickly as possible.
I am glad to hear that. The Minister will be aware from the work of Government, including Housing for All and the €4 billion per annum budget we are putting in to provide public housing and cost rental housing, and that we are addressing tenancies of indefinite duration. We have brought in five or six Acts during Covid to protect tenants in their tenancies. We applied the 2% rent cap during this time of high inflation. I refer to the Affordable Housing Act, the Land Development Agency Act and all of the work the Government is doing to provide secure tenancies, supply of housing and public housing on public land, with 100% public housing on public land in Cork and Dublin.
This is just one area that we need to address. It concerns people who are very vulnerable. Given the placement of these advertisements, these may not even be legitimate tenancies. I understand the difficulty is to try to identify where the problems exist and what the applicable laws are. I trust the Minister has this in hand and commend the work she has done on preventing sexual abuse and gender-based violence. I am sure she is continuing that work.
As the Deputy has outlined, there is a huge amount of work going into our housing plan. This has been identified as a gap and something we need to address. I assure the Deputy and colleagues here that we are working to try to address this and to bring forward proposals as quickly as we possibly can.
