Conor Sheehan: Renters 'thrown to the wolves' by government

Go raibh míle maith agat, Ceann Comhairle, agus bolum ar dúsbór am mhobh uíochas o Gaeil leis an pártí sin fféin, as ucht an rúin seo, a churth fí vraid an dál an nocht, agus mulum agus mulum pártí an locht aibre an rúin seo. Ceann Comhairle, the most basic test of any housing system is really quite simple. It's can ordinary people access secure and decent housing? And the fact of the matter is that in this country, we have arrived at a situation whereby the country is divided between haves and have-nots. And it's the haves who have property, who have secure housing, and the have-nots are those that don't. And earlier on, when Minister Cummins was sat opposite there, he spoke about 762 eviction notices, and that we weren't to consider that figure in the round, we were to consider it in light of other RTB data. Look, I get all that, but at the same time, 762 people got notices of termination in the first couple of months of this year. And they are people, they are children in school, they are people who work hard, they are people who contribute to their communities, they are people who are involved in their GAA clubs, etc, etc. They pay their rent, they pay it on time, they do everything right. And they obviously received that dreaded notice of termination at the start of this year. And the most depressing thing about being here tonight doing this is that this is all fairly predictable. And I really worry and I wonder how bad things must get before government actually takes its head out of the sand in relation to this, and acts, because government was warned at Ceann Comhairle repeatedly that weakening renter protections, failing to control rents, and relying on an overheated market in the way it has done, would make this crisis worse. The consequence of the government's rental reforms are that eviction notices are up by 51%, disputes with the RTB up by nearly 18%, new rents averaging €1,755 a month, over €2,200 a month for new renters in Dublin, over €2,100 in Galway, over €2,100 again in Limerick, and in loads of counties around the country we've had double-digit rent inflation. We've had 12.6% in Limerick, and we've had 9.9% just under 10% in Galway. And we can repeat ad nauseum, or the government can, if you like, the talking points that they have in their counter-motion in respect of supply. But the fact of the matter is that homelessness has risen in this country to a level that we have never seen in the history of the state. House prices continue to rise, and all around the country we see young people postponing key life milestones because they cannot secure a stable home. We have couples in their 30s, they're back in their childhood bedrooms, we have families going from homeless hub to homeless hub. I was out last week at Ciancórla, as many of us right across the house have been in respect of these by-elections, and I met an individual when I was canvassing in the north inner city of Dublin who told me he's moved, he's been homeless six years nearly, and he's moved 78 times in that period of time. And that has stuck with me ever since, that level of displacement, that level of poverty, that level of insecurity. And it's not just that man I met last week, because we have a situation now in this country whereby we have people with decent jobs, decent salaries, decent lives, and their lives in essence are completely precarious, because their life is built on quicksand, because they are renters. And what really depresses me is the way the government treats skyrocketing rents as necessary but unfortunate, or unfortunate but inevitable, because the fact of the matter is we have come to a situation now where we accept things that would have been politically unimaginable a decade ago. And time and again we hear the same mantra about the need to incentivise supply and the need for private sector investment. And the government repeatedly uses this as its reasoning for the rental reforms introduced as part of the RPZ amendment bill. But the type of supply that the government talks about incentivising is a small number of high yield, expensive, built to rent luxury developments. So what this means in practice is a small number of expensive apartment developments, maybe in the Docklands, maybe in Sandiford, maybe in Cork, but certainly not in Limerick, where there was a 12.6% rent increase, and not in Galway either, where a 9.9% rent increase. But there is nothing that the government is actually doing at Ciancórla to address this. There is no acknowledgement of this in the counter motion. I found the counter motion, genuinely, I was enraged when I read it. Because it states that the government is fully committed to tackling high rents. And when I saw that in the counter motion, I literally nearly fell out of my chair. Because how can the government put that into a counter motion when it has legislated to allow landlords to literally put rent in this country through the roof by the market reset element of the legislation. Which I begged the minister to remove during the committee and second stage of the RTB amendment bill. I even tabled what I would have called a sensible middle ground compromise amendment of a rent break in order to moderate the worst of this legislation to protect renters. And at every stage I was completely ignored and the legislation was guillotined. So for the government to put that into a counter motion, that it is fully committed to tackling high rents. That is simply factually incorrect, it is untrue and it is misleading. Because this counter motion is not grounded in reality. Because there is another part of the counter motion that states that recent reforms to the rental market aim to encourage investment and development. Which will encourage the building of new rental apartments to help slow down rent increases and moderate rent levels over time. The rent levels for these new built apartments, these luxury apartments and this luxury student accommodation are tied directly to the CPI and are exempt from the 2% cap. So that means that these newly built apartments enter the market at already really high over inflated rents. And because they are exempt from the cap they drive rents even higher. You look at cities like Dublin where rent consumes, it's about 50% of a workers after tax income. It's 45% in Galway and it's 35% in Limerick. And this government through the policy interventions that it has taken is subsidising and sponsoring what I could only describe as a build to rent cartel. And the government is either not being honest with people or it genuinely does not understand the cause and effect of what it's doing. And I don't know which is more worrying. Because the policy framework that the government have assumes that lifting rent controls on new properties will fast track investment into these high density apartment blocks. And that you'll get enough of them built in order to level rents off and start to bring them down. Notwithstanding the fact that they can take years to materialise. The fact that they will not materialise in most locations around the country. And notwithstanding the fact that while this is all going on you'll have renters who will continue to be crushed by these astronomical rent increases. And the government has gutted the RPZ regime in order to feed this system. And it will never be able to feed it enough to satiate it properly. And in the meantime renters have been thrown to the wolves. And the housing and homelessness crisis that is the worst in the history of the state is continuing to break its own records. And what depresses me the most is there is a lack of engagement there or constructive engagement with anyone in opposition on any of these issues. And I think the counter motion in my view embodies that. Because when legislation is tabled it's voted down at second stage. If it's opposition legislation or if it's a government bill the guillotine is used and it's absolutely rammed through. And I thought it was interesting as well at Cian Curle that there was no motion of homelessness, that there was no mention of homelessness in the counter motion. Because government have no new measures in relation to homelessness. Which is worsening every time, every quarter, every month, every year. And while the counter motion speaks of 2025 and the largest number of new built social homes constructed since the foundation of the state. It fails to mention that government never met their targets under housing for all. Fails to mention that the inbuilt housing deficit continues to grow and that it continues to rely on a baseline that is disconnected from the reality of the housing crisis due to the housing deficit. The fact of the matter is that this government is completely in hock to institutional investors. They wanted the market reset rent mechanism, they got it. They wanted the apartment design changes, they got them. They wanted subsidies, they got the fat cut. Meanwhile at Cian Curle it's renters, it's young people, it's homeless people, it's people in precarious situations who are paying for all of this.