Pearse Doherty: Evictions up 50% - 7,000 Notices

Tánaiste, is dro dhéir uibhfusa, na ffigur i a pháilse níomáidear le work policy tíochte. Sa chid trí bhíd an blíon seo, togú seart míle seasca dó fógra dgí thalbhaí a do penyntaí. An ffigur rathaibhul is airde a theatha du ríoch, seo suas níos mó na chmhaigeabh an géid ar an téimh sao ciarna an blíon ribh a seo. Agus a thánaiste, ní trí chempaiste a ta seo ag tarlu, tan na reitín na dgí thalbhaí a gairdu as cymse a dógursibh sinse seo ríos a chaitaí. D'asgaill siwth na thailleachaí, agus d'úrdh maith libh, cad é, go díra a tharlachaí. An ghaicinn seo bhai nais go bhuil, mhuir neirí a cíosa a tharais an gairdaím seo a ghenaí, o bháid a bháid níos masa. Tánaiste, figures published today are a devastating indictment on your government's housing policy. Eviction notices are now up by over 50%. We have more than 7,000 eviction notices issued to renters, the highest number ever, ever recorded. And these are real people. These are real lives. They're real families. They're workers. They're renters. They're young couples. They're older renters. They're people whose lives have now been thrown into turmoil as a result of your policies. I'm told of one couple in Galway. They're in their 60s. They've worked all their lives. They've just been served by an eviction notice. And the man told us that he has a pain in the pit of his stomach because they've literally nowhere to go. At that stage of their lives, it's unconscionable what is happening to families like that. Tánaiste, this didn't happen by accident. The rate of evictions has skyrocketed since you announced your rent hike bill last summer. You opened the floodgates. You were warned exactly about what would happen. You were warned that weakening rent protections would drive up rents. You were warned that landlords would use these changes to force tenants out. You were warned that renters would pay the price. And now the evidence is in. And at the same time, these figures confirm that rents are continuing to rise. Rents would up again last year, Tánaiste. At the very height of an emergency in housing, you decided to let landlords and new tenancies charge full market rents from the 1st of March. The result is predictable. And now we are going to see rent hikes up to 20% and 25%. Thousands of euros extra to be found by renters every single year. More pressure on workers. More pressure on families. More pressure on people who are already at breaking point in the middle of a cost of living crisis. And what makes people so angry is this, Tánaiste. You knew exactly what you were doing. You knew exactly what you were doing. You made a deliberate political choice to side with institutional investors, to side with the vulture swans, to side with the landlords over ordinary Irish renters. And it was a charter for rent hikes and evictions. And the reality now that people are facing is brutal, Tánaiste. Rents are off the scale because of the decisions that Fianna Fail and Finlay Gael have made. And even when people could rent, there is literally nothing available. Young workers are locked out of ever owning their own home. Couples are forced back into their parents' box rooms. Families are lying awake at night terrified about the next eviction notice. And workers in their 40s and in their 50s are wondering if they ever will have the security again of stability in their lives. And all the while while this is happening, you continue to miss your inadequate social and affordable housing targets. And supply remains nowhere near where demand is. So what is exactly, what are people supposed to do, Tánaiste? Because for many of them, there's nowhere to go. And everybody knows what comes next. It's more homelessness. More families in emergency accommodation. More young people forced to emigrate and leave our shores. Another generation locked out of the possibility of secure and affordable homes, Tánaiste. Today's figure exposes the reality of your housing policy. More evictions, more rent, more insecurity, more homelessness. And it's not an accident. So I'm asking you a direct question now. Will you admit that your rent changes have made this crisis dramatically worse? And will you reverse your disastrous rent hike legislation that has driven and is driving renters out of their homes? Tánaiste, please. Well, thanks very much, László and Córdova. Thank you to the Deputy. And I'm grateful to the RTEB directors for the publication of their update report today. And of course, it's very important when any report is published, not just to cherry-pick one figure in isolation. And present that as the reality or indeed as the totality of the analysis that's been carried out by the RTEB. Because of course, that isn't the case at all. In fact, the report that was published only a very brief period of time ago, actually shows that there was a 39% decrease in the number of termination notices issued in the month of March compared to the month of February. So yes, while the Deputy might be right and while the Deputy may wish to scoff, the reality also shows that actually there's a downward trend from February to March in terms of the termination notices. That's also in the report, but perhaps was overlooked. There's also in the report clear signs of continued resilience in the Irish rental sector. We see more tenancies and more landlords in the market this time this year than we did at the same time last year. Statement of fact. More tenancies, more tenants, more landlords and more homes. In many ways, this also tallies with the information that we've seen from a recent market report on daf.ie, which reported a modest, not only a modest, but a modest rebound in the availability of rental properties. We've seen 16,548 new tenancy registrations in the first three months of this year. We've seen 246,477 registered private tenancies in quarter one of this year, an increase on last year. We've seen 105,847 private landlords registered in the first quarter of this year compared to the same quarter last year as well. So this report does show there's more tenants, more tenancies, more landlords and more homes than there was this time last year. That's not to say that there isn't a very significant housing challenge. That's not to say that we're not still in the midst of a housing emergency, but it is to provide some fair balance and analysis to the actual report that's just been published. You talked, Deputy, in relation to protection for renters. You'll know, you vote against them, but you know we took measures in this House to strengthen the rights of tenants. You'll know that there's people in your constituency of Donegal who are now covered by rent pressure zones that were not covered before this government brought in that legislative measures. You'll know that since March 1, 2026, there's a rent increase restriction nationwide on all tenancies. You'll know that rent increases are now capped at the level of inflation to a maximum of 2% for existing tenancies. You'll know that we've strengthened tenancy protections. You'll know that we've improved security of tenure. You'll know that we've introduced tenancies of minimum duration involving rolling six-year tenancies. And you'll know we've ended, effectively, no-fault evictions by larger landlords as well. A point I would agree with you on, though, it is about supply, and we do need to continue to build and provide more homes. But we're doing just that. We've now seen 241,000 homes since 2016, 36,000 last year alone. You talked about first-time buyers and people having the right to buy their own home. Over 27,500 bought their own home in 2025, the highest number since 2007. More than 500 first-time buyers every single week buying their new first home. And when it comes to helping people in need of housing and social housing, we've added more social homes. Over 85,000 new homes to the active social housing stock since 2016. And we're building more social homes, 55,600 new built social homes since 2016 as well. And alongside that, we're continuing to keep supports in place, like the Help to Buy, which you'd get rid of, like the First Home Scheme, which you'd get rid of as well. So we have serious issues when it comes to housing. But we are actually now seeing more homes being built. We're seeing more people being able to access tenancies. We're seeing more landlords in the market. We're seeing encouraging figures when it comes to commencement and planning. And we're going to continue to drive that agenda forward and get 300,000 homes delivered by the end of 2030. Thank you, Dermot. Tanisha, you can spin this whatever way you want, but it's black and white. The truth is that you are deepening the crisis because of the political choices that you've... And you can shake your head all you want. Seriously, seriously, Tanisha. Do you know what is happening out there? Your government, your party and Fianna Fáil and the independents that support you have opened the floodgates here. We warned you. We told you what was going to happen. You're allowing landlords to drive up rents. We told you that we'd use your legislation to evict tenants. And what is happening now? You are presiding over the highest rate of evictions since the famine. Think of that, Tanisha. Since the famine, you are presiding over the highest rate of evictions. In one of the most wealthiest countries in Europe, families are being driven from their homes in their thousands. That is what you're overseeing. We have told you time and time again that your policies are failing people. That is why so many people are giving up, believe that they have no future in this country, that they're losing hope because of your policies. You're talking about affordable housing that's costing €2,500 and €3,000 to rent every single month. It is simply unaffordable. So I ask you this, Tanisha. Do you accept that your legislation has allowed a situation where now we have more evictions since the famine and Fianna Fáil and Finlay Gale are presiding over that? No, I don't. No, I don't. And of course, you want people to give up hope. You want people to give up on this country because your politics thrives on that negativity and that divisiveness. But the people are much more reasonable than you. The people are much more reasonable than you. And they know that we're building more homes than the EU average. They know that Ireland delivers the strongest rate of new housing completions across 19 countries in the EU in 2024. They can see the homes. They can see the cranes. They can see the figures. They know there's more first-time buyers than any time since 2007. They know that there's more tenancies as well. And they know that we're making progress. The reality, though, is all you do each and every week is hop on the latest headline. While we're making serious policy decisions across a spectrum of the housing challenge, you have no sense of direction. Whatever way the wind blows, Pierce goes. And it doesn't add up as the problem. You want to get rid of all the taxes. You want more spending. You want a mini-budget every week. You say you want more affordable and available rental supply. Yet you vote against every measure we bring forward. You're not even capable of responsible opposition, which is why the people have never put you in government.