Peadar Tóibín: Calls Out Two-Tier Ukraine Support Scheme
Peadar Tóibín (Aontú) addressed the Dáil to argue the accommodation payment for people from Ukraine should be reduced and means-tested. He says the current ARP creates a two-tier, discriminatory system that has pushed up rents and threatened social cohesion.
Main points: Peadar Tóibín criticised the current scheme as uneven and discriminatory, saying landlords have preferred Ukrainian tenants because of the subsidy. He announced Aontú will support a reduction in the rate of payment and pressed for means-testing to bring the scheme in line with other housing supports.
Eviction and rent-a-room concerns: Tóibín highlighted reports of tenants being removed from rent-a-room arrangements to make way for higher-paying ARP tenancies. He warned that most parties voted against proposed protections for those facing eviction from such rooms.
Supply and demand: He placed responsibility for the housing crisis on the government for lack of supply, but also emphasised that demand matters. Tóibín argued that equalising services across Europe and reducing pull factors are necessary to balance supply with demand and protect local communities.
Implications: The speech frames the ARP issue as both a fairness problem and a practical driver of rent inflation. Tóibín called for policy changes to protect existing tenants, ensure fairness between hosts and guests, and address housing supply.
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Go raibh míle maith agat a lás Ceann Comhairle. The Irish people are a generous and decent people and have been over the last number of years with the provision of supports to people from Ukraine while they were fleeing the war. And this is right and just. The war that has been unleashed on Ukraine is absolutely wrong. Aontú will be supporting the reduction of the rate of payment under this scheme. The scheme that was created was uneven, unfair and discriminatory for those seeking accommodation or housing. It created a two-tier support system, which is unfair. And that two-tier support system threatens cohesion. It has caused anger and it has caused pushback amongst the general public. And there have been reports of Facebook pages, for example, where Ukrainian nationals have posted messages looking for homes where they say that they can afford the rent and they can also pay an additional tax-free €600 on top of what the asking price is. And landlords are rational. They will make economic decisions to best suit them. Landlords were more inclined to take on Ukrainian tenants than Irish tenants over the last number of years. And this system is discriminatory. It gives an advantage to guests in the country over the people who have lived here for most of their lives. And the fact that this has not been means-tested is extraordinary. The fact that you can have two people living on the same street, who are on the same wages, and one individual gets a further subsidy from the government than the other, is shocking. And the fact that many in this chamber don't understand that is also shocking. You can have a Ukrainian family on a six-figure salary who can get the subsidy, and a neighbour who's on a five-figure salary who can't. So I'm very disappointed to see that the government, the Sokh Dems, Labour, the Greens and People for Profit voting against an amendment which this time and last time wanted to means-test this payment and put it on a level footing with other housing assistance payments. Most parties also voted against the proposed rule which sought to protect the rent-a-room tenants from eviction. It has been reported again that some landlords who wanted to take rent from the ARP scheme made way for that scheme by removing certain tenants in those rent-a-room schemes. And that's wrong as well. I think there's a disconnect in this chamber between some of the parties in relation to these supports. The housing crisis is the government's fault. The lack of supply is the government's fault. But anybody who sat the Leaving Cert Economics paper just a few weeks ago will also know that demand also has a role. Demand also determines what rents are, what prices of houses are, etc. It's physics, it's maths, it's not ideology. And we need to get to a situation where we equalise supply with demand. That means the government building more homes, but it also means making sure that demand is not too much. And to make sure that we don't have a pull factor in this country, it's important that the services and the provision in this country are equalised with other European countries as well, so that there's a fair distribution of people from Ukraine who need help. Go raibh maith agat.
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