Eviction Ban: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members]

The following motion was moved by Deputy Eoin Ó Broin on Tuesday, 21 March 2023:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes that:

— the State remains in the midst of a housing emergency;

— the Government has chosen to end the emergency ban on evictions on 31st March, 2023;

— the Government, in making this decision, has increased the stress and insecurity experienced by the 750,000 people, including working families, living in private rented accommodation;

— the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has admitted that homelessness will increase once the current eviction ban ends;

— according to the Residential Tenancies Board 7,539 eviction notices were issued from January to September in 2022;

— only a handful of tenant-in-situ purchases were completed in Dublin in the last year;

— emergency homeless accommodation is at breaking point; and

— the Government has no contingency plan in place to deal with the increase in homeless presentations when the current ban on evictions ends; and

calls on the Government to:

— extend the emergency ban on evictions until the end of January 2024;

— expand the tenant-in-situ scheme for both social and affordable cost rental tenants;

— use emergency planning and procurement powers to target vacant and derelict buildings and new building technologies to increase the supply of social and affordable homes above the existing 2023 targets; and

— urgently commence the biggest social and affordable housing programme in the history of the State so that people can access secure, affordable housing to buy and rent.

The following amendment No. 5 was moved by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage:

To delete all words after "That Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"notes that:

— the Government agreed on 7th March that the 'winter emergency period' under the Residential Tenancies (Deferment of Termination Dates of Certain Tenancies) Act 2022 would come to an end on 31st March, 2023, with deferred tenancy terminations taking effect over a staggered period from 1st April to 18th June, 2023 as planned and legislated for under that Act;

— the Government has used the past several months to increase housing supply for those most in need, and in the last quarter of 2022, approximately 6,000 new social homes were delivered, including almost 5,000 new build social housing homes;

— during the last quarter of 2022, 1,532 local authority homes were refurbished under the Voids Stimulus Programme and restored to use; the voids programme will also be intensified in 2023;

— just prior to and during the period of the moratorium local authorities opened some 500 additional homeless emergency beds and 170 cold weather beds;

— the most effective way to assist renters is to increase supply and accelerate delivery of housing for purchase and for private rental, cost rental and social rental; every effort will continue to be made to prevent people becoming homeless;

— new affordable homes for purchase and cost rental by local authorities, Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), the Land Development Agency and the 'First Home' scheme are being delivered at scale and a pipeline of delivery for the coming years is established and strengthening;

— measures are being taken to put in place additional accommodation to prevent homelessness, including:

— an increase in the number of social housing acquisitions target to at least 1,500 in 2023, with a further expansion of the target as required;

— an additional 1,000 homes through targeted leasing initiatives in 2023 and 2024; and

— the amendment of the Capital Advance Leasing Facility used by AHBs to assist them in their efforts in delivering social homes;

— to reduce the number of households at risk of homelessness the Government plans to rapidly:

— give tenants the right of first refusal to buy their homes, by requiring a landlord selling a property to first offer it to the tenant on an independent valuation basis for sale;

— expand the 'First Home' scheme to support tenants to purchase under the right of refusal;

— enhance the availability of the Local Authority Home Loan to tenants utilising the right of first refusal;

— work with local authorities and AHBs to develop a cost rental model for tenants at risk of homelessness but not on social housing supports to enable them to continue to rent their home; and

— establish the cost rental scheme on an administrative basis to ensure no eligible household is left behind prior to any required legislation;

— a comprehensive review of the rental sector has commenced that will take into account the significant regulatory changes over the past several years;

— the review aims to put in place a private rental sector which gives long-term certainty to tenants while ensuring that property providers – both small and large scale – are encouraged to provide badly needed rental property for all those who depend on it;

— over the coming months, the Government will work to put together a comprehensive new budgetary package of effective measures for both tenants and landlords, that support renters and providers of accommodation both in respect of short-term measures and the longer-term certainty for renters and property providers;

— increasing social, affordable and private housing supply, for renters and those looking to purchase a home, is key to improving our housing system and eradicating homelessness, with almost 30,000 homes built last year, an increase of 45.2 per cent from 2021 (20,560) and 41.3 per cent from 2019 (21,134), and 5,250 or 21 per cent higher than the Housing for All: A New Housing Plan for Ireland target of 24,600 for 2022;

— the Government will continue to expand the provision of social and cost rental accommodation to ensure that all sectors of our society have available to them rental accommodation that meets their needs;

further notes with regards to increasing social housing:

— a total of 9,183 social homes were delivered in 2021;

— when verified and published in the coming weeks, figures will show more social housing new builds were delivered in 2022 than in any year since 1975; furthermore, in 2020 and 2021 more than €88 million was spent in bringing 6,032 vacant social homes back into use;

— a record €4.5 billion in State housing investment in 2023 will ensure the substantial uplift in supply in 2022 can be maintained and exceeded, with 9,100 direct build social homes and 5,500 affordable homes to be delivered;

— the review of the Capital Advance Leasing Facility funding model which will be formally launched later this month will allow AHBs to deliver social housing in all local authority areas;

— recent adjustments to the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme, including increasing the discretionary base level of HAP, are anticipated to have a positive effect on tenancy sustainability and a corresponding mitigating effect on the Debt Management Process and cessations; and

— the Government will amend the HAP scheme to ensure sustainable tenancies including, as appropriate, secure payments to landlords where the tenant defaults with effect from 1st May, 2023;

acknowledges in relation to increasing the tenant-in-situ acquisitions:

— in light of the challenges in addressing homelessness, combined with continuing exits from the private rental market, the Government will continue to support opportunities for the acquisition of properties to prevent homelessness and will take further targeted measures to increase acquisitions of properties where a landlord is selling the property;

— in April 2022, the Government reinstated the delegated sanction to local authorities in respect of social housing acquisitions; and the reinstatement of delegated sanction has allowed local authorities to respond with more flexibility to secure acquisitions which support a household to exit, or to prevent, homelessness;

— the Government will support local authorities to acquire at least 1,500 social homes in 2023, with a further expansion of that target as required, and the majority of these will be focused on properties where landlords are exiting the market and there is already a social housing tenant in place;

— the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has written to each local authority to instruct them to target acquisitions on HAP or Rental Accommodation Scheme tenants under Notices to Quit, to develop their own acquisition plan and seek a report on acquisitions in train for 2023 which is due to be received by the end of March;

— the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is setting up an 'acquisition delivery team' to ensure each Local Authority meets its tenant-in-situ purchase targets; and

— a cost rental tenant-in-situ backstop will be applied on an administrative basis from 1 April prior to legislative enactment with a view to supporting households at risk of homelessness.

in relation to increasing affordable housing further acknowledges that:

— 2022 was the first full year of affordable housing delivery in a generation, and supply at scale will be achieved through a mix of new or extended initiatives, including the 'First Home' scheme, local authority-provided affordable purchase schemes, the Help to Buy initiative, and the expanded Local Authority Home Loan;

— Cost Rental housing, a new form of State-backed secure, long-term rental tenure, with rents targeted at a minimum of 25 per cent below open market rates, is being delivered at scale, with hundreds of Cost Rental homes tenanted, and the investment of over €1 billion to support affordability measures and deliver more affordable purchase and cost rental homes in 2023; and

— the Government is developing proposals for a bespoke Cost Rental model which would see a provider avail of the right of first refusal, to allow tenants who have received such a notice and who are at risk of homelessness, but not on social housing supports, continue to reside in the property, and this would involve an option for AHBs and local authorities to purchase the property and to continue to let it with financial support from the Government, and this will be rapidly established on an administrative basis prior to legislation:

in relation to improving viability notes:

— following consultation with stakeholders, the Government is taking steps to address viability in the provision of apartments, including activating uncommenced planning permission by engaging with site owners through the expansion of the Project Tosaigh and the Housing Agency's Croí Cónaithe (Cities) Scheme, which will help to deliver increased supply over the next few years;

— additionally, proposals are being prepared by Government for a new viability measure to activate stalled planning permissions and bring forward Cost Rental at scale for consideration in April;

in relation to reducing vacancy notes:

— the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage recently published the Vacant Homes Action Plan, which outlines progress and details new actions that will be implemented to continue to return as many vacant properties back in to use as possible, increasing the supply of housing available, and revitalising local communities;

— measures already taken by the Government include expanding the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant, funding full-time vacant homes officers in every local authority, exemptions to planning permissions to convert vacant commercial premises to residential use, and enhancing the Fair Deal scheme to incentivise the selling or renting of unused homes;

— measures in the action plan include a €150 million Urban Regeneration Development Fund, for local authorities to acquire vacant or derelict properties and sites for re-use or sale and a new local authority-led programme is being developed to help them buy or compulsory purchase vacant homes in their areas and resell them on the open market;

— the Government is building on the initial success of the Croí Cónaithe (Towns) Fund vacanct property refurbishment scheme and will change the eligibility date for properties to include properties built prior to 2007, with effect from 1st May, 2023;

— these steps will include the extension of the Croí Cónaithe (Towns) Fund refurbishment scheme, to include properties which are made available for rent and not just owner occupied from 1st May, 2023, grant rates will also be reviewed;

in relation to enhancing Tenants rights notes:

— there is on-going reform and resourcing of the RTB to ensure it is fit for purpose for regulating the rental sector;

— there has been major expansion of tenants' rights including tenancies of indefinite duration and increase in notice to quit periods;

— there has also been an extension of the Rent Pressure Zone (RPZ) system to 2024 and a 2 per cent rent cap; and

— the upcoming Residential Tenancies Bill is a further opportunity to strengthen tenants' rights;

supporting the use of new building technologies funding of €94 million has been allocated to pay down local authority loans on legacy indebted sites, which can deliver social housing projects through the use of accelerated delivery models, principally offsite/Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), and by paying down the outstanding loans, the fund will free up these sites for immediate development, with local authorities recouping the cost of repaying loans on 26 separate sites, all of which will be developed using MMC;

in relation to preventing and addressing homelessness notes that:

— the continuing increase in the numbers accessing emergency accommodation throughout the country is a serious concern; and the Government, local authorities and others are making every effort to reduce homelessness;

— while the eviction moratorium slowed down the numbers entering homelessness, it did not prevent it; and additional measures are underway to urgently and substantially scale up housing delivery, including emergency accommodation, affordable housing, cost rental accommodation and social housing;

— the Government is aware of the challenges faced in sourcing emergency accommodation throughout the country, and local authorities are working with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to further increase capacity;

— the homeless emergency accommodation budget for 2023 makes provision for €215 million in funding for homeless services, an increase from €194 million in 2022; and the extra funding for homelessness reflects the priority that this Government is giving to homelessness;

— the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has made it clear that funding and resources are not an obstacle to the urgent efforts required to address homelessness; the Government is committed to ensuring emergency accommodation is provided wherever needed through a range of mechanisms including direct purchasing and leasing;

— the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is currently working with local authorities to bring on stream an additional 2,000 beds in 2023; to date in 2023, almost 200 new beds have opened in the Dublin Region; and the Department is actively working with all local authorities to ensure there is sufficient emergency accommodation available to people presenting as homeless and it is expected that a further 1,000 beds will open in Q2;

— local authorities can avail of commercial accommodation such as hotels and bed and breakfasts to accommodate those seeking emergency homeless accommodation in cases where no other appropriate emergency accommodation is available; and

— to tackle accommodation shortages in the rental market, the Government is strengthening regulatory controls on short-term lets with a ban on the advertising of non-principal private residences in RPZs for short-term letting purposes, where the necessary planning permission is not in place;

with regards to tax measures notes that:

— the Government has introduced a new rent tax credit valued at €500 per renter per year for those taxpayers who are paying for rental accommodation during the years 2022 to 2025;

— if a taxpayer lets a room in his or her home, they may claim a tax exemption in respect of the rental income; the rental income cannot exceed the exemption limit of €14,000; otherwise, the total rental income is taxable;

— the Government will extend the Rent-a-Room scheme disregard for social welfare recipients and extend the disregard into medical card criteria from 1st May, 2023 and allow local authority tenancies to access the scheme;

— the doubling of the cap on deductibility for a landlord's pre-letting expenditure for previously vacant properties to €10,000 per property;

— the Government provided for a new tax deduction (of up to €10,000) for landlords who undertake retrofitting works while the tenant remains in situ;

— reforms of the Fair Deal Scheme reduced disincentives to renting out and selling a home vacated when its owner enters a nursing home including a disregard of 60 per cent (rather than the previous 20 per cent) of any rental income derived from the principal private residence (PPR) and a three year cap on contributions on the sale of a home;

— the Government will further move to eliminate remaining barriers to older people utilising the Fair Deal Scheme who wish to rent out their homes; and

— the Government is committed to the introduction of a meaningful and effective Budgetary package for the rental sector to include both taxation and expenditure measures;

in relation to the planning powers, to help expedite the provision of housing by local authorities, new provisions came into effect from 8th March, 2023 and will provide a temporary exemption from the 'Part 8' planning approval process by elected members for local authority own developments for social and affordable (including cost rental) housing which commence construction before the end of 2024; and

having regard to progress already made, the Housing for All: Action Plan Update commits the Government to reviewing the national housing targets and projections when the full Census 2022 is published later this year; and this will include refreshed targets with subsets for social, affordable and market delivery that reflect need and demand, and a scaling up to ensure optimal levels of sustainable supply over the lifetime of the plan in line with increased capacity in the construction sector".

Debate resumed on amendment No. 1 to amendment No. 5:

To insert the following after "increased capacity in the construction sector":

"further calls on the Government to:

— remove barriers for older people in long-term nursing home care who wish to lease out their homes, effective from 1st May, 2023;

— increase the refurbishment grant rate for the Croí Cónaithe (Towns) Fund Scheme, to reflect current building costs, effective from 1st May, 2023;

— extend the Croí Cónaithe scheme to include properties which are made available for rent and not just owner-occupied, effective from 1st May, 2023;

— revise the Croí Cónaithe scheme to include properties built prior to 2007, effective from 1st May, 2023;

— extend the Rent-a-Room Relief scheme to people receiving social welfare payments who rent out a room so that they do not lose supplementary benefits, such as the medical card, effective from 1st May, 2023;

— introduce in Budget 2024 a tax relief scheme to take effect in the current tax year for small landlords;

— amend the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) to guarantee payment to landlords where the tenant defaults on payment of contribution to HAP, effective from 1st May, 2023; and

— immediately engage with site owners who have obtained planning permission under the Strategic Infrastructure Development and have not yet commenced building due to viability issues, in order to ensure immediate commencement of these projects under affordable housing schemes".

- (Deputy Verona Murphy)

Deputy Pearse Doherty

Listening to the Minister and the Minister of State, you would swear to God we were not in the middle of a housing crisis. You would swear to God we did not have rents at record levels, house prices at record levels and a whole generation locked out of any prospect of homeownership the longer the Government stays in power. Listening to the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, you would swear 11,754 people were not in emergency accommodation. Under his watch, 3,400 children are in emergency accommodation tonight, and the Government has made a conscious decision to increase that number over the coming days. Three thousand eviction notices will take effect in ten days' time, and there is a decision to be made tonight and tomorrow, when the vote is cast, as to whether Deputies are going to give support to those individuals or whether they are consciously going to ensure they will become homeless in the middle of a housing crisis the likes of which we have never seen before in the modern history of this State, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.

I put that to the Regional Independent Group as well, because there is no hiding space here any more. Every one of us has our eyes wide open because every one of us, on this side of the House anyway - and I am sure it is the same with the Deputies in that group - has had countless letters, emails and visits to our constituency offices with a simple question, namely, where people are to go. That is the question the Government cannot answer because for the vast majority of these people, there is nowhere to go. There is no rental accommodation in many of these communities that they can just move into, or if there is, it is for sky-high rents. Seventeen local authorities have no additional emergency accommodation and others are at breaking point, yet in the middle of this crisis, knowing these facts, the Government is going to decide to increase the numbers of families and children into homelessness. My party colleague, Deputy Ward, who experienced homelessness, talks about the realities of that and the shame of it. The Government and every Deputy who votes to increase homelessness should be absolutely ashamed to do that to mothers, fathers and children, knowing fine well the long-term impact that will have on them, their mental health and the development of the child.

This is no longer just a city problem. The Minister talked about us scaremongering people regarding evictions. Does he think these eviction notices are fictional? These people are being evicted, some of them in ten days' time. In my constituency, I saw something I never thought I would see. A mother and her two youngest children have moved into the boxroom of their parents' house and there is no room for the other children, so the teenagers are couch-surfing. That is what is happening in the real world.

The Government needs to wise up and do the right thing, and every Deputy needs to vote to extend this ban.

Deputy Maurice Quinlivan

I listened carefully to the contribution of the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and in particular that of the Minister of State, given we share a constituency and he will have dealt with some of the people I have dealt with, as I know because they have told me they have been to his constituency office, but he has not answered the question they have been asking me.

The question is one many Deputies on this side of the House have asked, namely, where people are to go. I have been visited by families of children with special needs who have been given notices to quit. There have been 211 notices to quit in our constituency and the question the Minister of State has not answered is where they are supposed to go. He knows for a fact that the emergency accommodation in Limerick is full, as it has been for some time. The temporary emergency provision sends away ten people, on average, every night. They have nowhere to go. The hotels are full, families do not end up staying in the same room each night because they have to move from hotel to hotel and they do not know where they will stay next. It is a problem for children going to school and it is having a very damaging impact on their ability to grow. The Government was told this as far back as seven years ago when Fine Gael was in government and had a housing Minister but utterly failed to do anything about that.

The eviction ban, as we all know, is ending in ten days' time. It is the wrong decision. I appeal to the Minister, in respect of Dublin Fingal, and the Minister of State, in respect of Limerick City, to reconsider. They know we are going to have a problem and that these people have nowhere to go. They cannot tell them where to go nor answer that question. No member of the Government has answered that question. The Minister and the Minister of State covered themselves in waffle for ten minutes. I know the people the Minister of State met because they came to my office as well. He has no answer for those people. It is the wrong decision for people working in emergency accommodation, because more families will have to be turned away than has been the case, and it is the wrong decision for local councils such as that in Limerick, whose massive housing lists will grow. The decision will force more people to seek housing solutions from their local council, increasing the numbers on already-high waiting lists.

It is the wrong decision also for business, and the Government's housing policies are creating huge problems for our economy, as representatives of Chambers Ireland noted at a recent appearance before the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment. The greatest challenge facing small and medium enterprises this year is the lack of available talent, which is driven by the unavailability of affordable and appropriate housing throughout most of the country. The Government has abandoned renters, but perhaps now that businesses are worried, with growth and jobs affected, they will move on that.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

It is important to remember exactly why the ban on evictions was introduced last November. The Minister knows, given he brought a memo to Cabinet in October that told us there were 19 local authorities with no additional emergency accommodation capacity. It stated that if a ban was not effected, a significant number of single people, couples, parents of children and pensioners would end up with nowhere to go. They would have been forced to sleep rough or present to Garda stations. That is why the ban was introduced. We pleaded with the Government to undertake a series of emergency interventions to ease the pressure on the emergency accommodation system in order that we would be in a better position now, and it refused to do it. In fact, all the things the Minister listed in his contribution, and which his new Minister of State tried to list but got his numbers wrong, were steps the Government was already planning to take before the emergency ban was effected, and on most of those things, it did not meet any of its targets.

In the debates we have had, the Government has given a number of reasons as to why the ban should not be extended. It said the previous ban did not work, which is not true given it reduced homeless presentations by families by 10%, and if it had not been introduced, things would be much worse today. It said we would lose more single-property landlords from the market, whereas the very immediate consequence of ending the ban is that those properties will go. For seven years, single-property landlords have been leaving the market as a result of both positive equity and the dysfunctional management of the private rental sector by the Minister and his predecessors. The Government indicated that extending the ban would disincentivise investment, but the only new investment into the private rental sector is from institutional investors, and they are not affected by a ban on no-fault evictions because they do not evict on those grounds, although, as the Minister knows, those investors are now withdrawing from the market because of rising interest rates. Contrary to the Government's claim that it has ramped up the supply of social and affordable housing, it again missed its targets, which were too low. It is interesting that in all the Government's commentary in recent days, it has not told us how many affordable-purchase or cost-rental units were delivered last year, because when we get the figures, the missed targets will be even worse than those for social housing.

I might respond briefly to some of the steps the Minister said the Government is taking. As Deputy Cian O'Callaghan rightly said, representatives of the County and City Management Association and departmental officials stated today that the tenant in situ scheme is not working, and that is because the Minister has not given a clear instruction to local authorities to suspend the scheme of allocations, have a presumption to buy subject to cost and condition and prioritise the allocation of staff to purchase.

That is why the numbers are so slow. If the Minister does not reform the scheme, those targets will not be met either. In addition, he has not yet extended it to cost rental. Officials in the Department told us today that a decision will be taken soon. The Minister could have taken that decision last year and extended the cost rental equity loan to approved housing bodies. If he had done so, the residents of Tathony House, whose case is regularly raised by Deputy Boyd Barrett, would have been in a much better position.

The Minister stated that he is increasing supply. This is the big deceit of the Government and its predecessor. The reason there is a housing crisis is that, year after year, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have not supplied an adequate volume of social and affordable homes. One third of people in the private rental sector are subsidised by HAP, RAS or rent supplement. The overwhelming majority of those people want to be in social housing. Another 90,000 people, approximately, in the private rental sector cannot afford their rent. They need to be in affordable homes to rent or buy.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

Which the Deputy is against.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The central cause of this crisis is the Minister and his policies. Deputy Barry was correct. The Minister will be remembered like some of his predecessors. Some of us are old enough to remember when Margaret Thatcher withdrew free milk from schools in Britain, giving rise to the campaign slogan "Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher". The proposal by John Bruton to introduce VAT on children's shoes almost brought down a Government. That is the Minister's legacy. It is what people will associate with the name Darragh O'Brien in perpetuity - the Minister who deliberately increased homelessness-----

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 21 Mar 2023