Richard Boyd Barrett: Warns bill will raise rents, enrich landlords

So, this bill, probably the best place to be in responding to this bill by the government is outside with the protesters that are assembling now against this bill, which is a bill that is going to make an already dire housing crisis even worse by allowing landlords, already charging extortionate rents that are unaffordable for huge numbers of people, to actually reset those rents to even higher levels. Frankly, it beggars belief that the government are doing this, unless you know that really this government isn't representing the interests of the people who are affected by the housing crisis, but is representing the interests of those who are profiteering on the backs of the housing misery of others. There can be no other explanation for what this bill is doing. And what this amendment, the first amendment I put in, was seeking to essentially stop this bill until the government were forced to look at what this would do to the affordability of rents, to force them to stop this bill until they address the issue of no-fault evictions and to stop this bill until we actually have a plan on the part of the government to make rents affordable. That was ruled out of order, so in the absence of that, this amendment seeks to force the government to do those things in the aftermath of passing this bill. Now, of course, I don't believe the government is in any way serious, one way or another, before, during or after, in addressing those issues, because they wouldn't have introduced this bill in the first place if they were serious about it. But, you know, for the sake of form, let's rehearse the government's argument. The government's argument is like the argument that was made by the US military during the Vietnam War when they said we needed to bomb villages in order to save them. And what the government is saying is, in order to reduce rents, we have to increase rents. That's what they're saying. It is perverse Orwellian logic. We have to allow rents to be reset to even more unaffordable levels, because somehow, by magic, that's going to make rents go down at some point in the future. Now, there is no evidence ever anywhere of that happening. This is market dogma of the absolute worst kind. But, of course, the reason why the government aren't bothered that it makes no sense whatsoever is because, actually, the bill is going to do what the government really wants to do, which is further enrich the property speculators, the investors and the corporate landlords. And, by the way, I want to say at the outset, I believe anybody who's a landlord in this doll should recuse themselves from this debate and should not vote on it. It's absolutely unconscionable that we're going to have a bill that is going to jack up already unaffordable rents to even more unaffordable levels and that people who vote for that might actually benefit financially from it. It's outrageous, right? And we have, as we know, a disproportionate number of landlords in the government parties, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and some of the independents backing up this government. Disproportionate in terms of the political parties in this doll and disproportionate in terms of the broader representation in society in this chamber. But, of course, beyond that, beyond people who may actually financially benefit themselves, we have a government that believe in this nonsense that somehow property investors are going to solve the housing crisis. You know, I just kind of can't believe it because the reason we have a housing crisis is because you handed over the entire housing sector after the crash of 2008, 2009 to property investors. That's why we have a housing crisis. I mean, I think of, in my area, Cherrywood, which is the biggest residential development, it's a good test case, do you know what I mean? It's the biggest residential development in the entire country and one of the biggest in Europe. So it's a pretty good sort of opportunity to look at housing policy and the biggest residential development. When that was taken over by NAMA, nationalised, brought into public ownership, at that point, we could have developed that to deliver social and affordable housing. Instead, Fine Gael-led governments decided, and Fianna Fáil subsequently, decided to hand it to property investors. And what is the consequence? Well, the consequence was for quite a few years they sat on it because it's more profitable to sit than to build houses. So they, and by the way, we were actively asking that they should be built at that time, not objecting, asking they should be built, but they sat on it and waited for the value of those properties to go up, waited for the housing crisis to get worse. Then they started to flip it to other property developers. As Mel Reynolds said to me at the time, he said, Hines probably had made a profit on cherry wood before a single brick was laid. Because they're making profit from speculating on building land. And then eventually, they start to build the houses and apartments up there. What prices are they going for? The houses are going for €600,000 and €700,000. Unaffordable for the vast majority of people. The rents that are being charged, €2,000, €2,500, €3,000, €3,500 a month. Totally unaffordable for the vast majority of people. So who is going to end up owning it? Big property investment funds, big international pension funds and so on, charging these extortionate rents. Now the government wants to reset it even further. As an aside, they don't want to build a town centre because they can't make as much profit out of town centres, which are needed by the community. But that's where this stuff leads. You think these people are going to reduce rents because we now allow them to reset rents upwards? It's absolute nonsense. It's going to do increased profits, make rents even more unaffordable, further drive up, increase more speculation and do nothing. Well, worse than nothing. It's going to exacerbate the housing crisis. Just briefly, last couple of points. The bill is supposedly, all of this extraordinary action is supposed to be justified on the fact that there's going to be some greater protection for security for tenants because of the six-year rule. Now, the problem with that is, if rents are unaffordable and if you can still be evicted, which you can for not being able to pay the rent, and the rents are unaffordable, then the likelihood of you not being able to pay an unaffordable rent and therefore getting evicted for not being able to pay an unaffordable rent is a lot higher. And if you're somebody who's looking for a new tenancy, and 60,000 to 70,000 tenancies end on a voluntary basis or just end, so that means almost all tenancies a year, 60,000 to 70,000 a year, so almost all tenancies will end over a period of about a decade, that means all rents very, very quickly will be unaffordable. So, anybody looking for a place, they will now, in Dublin it's currently 2,100 average rent, they will all go up to the level of what you see on daft.ie. You go on daft.ie, look for something now, 2,500, 3,000, 3,500. All rents will be up to that level. Dramatic increases, and that's going to happen all over the country. Right? Exacerbating the housing crisis, driving more people into homelessness because there is literally nowhere to go for them that is affordable. That is what is going to happen, and by the way, I just want to mention a couple of other consequences of all of this, is that people who are on HAP are going to get potentially a double hit on all of this, right? Because many of the people who are on HAP are paying top-up payments to the private landlord, and the HAP levels aren't, they're inadequate as they are, but they're not adjusted for rent increases. So, if your landlord increases the rent and you're on HAP, the top-up you have to pay is even more. Is even more. Now, huge numbers of people are in serious trouble because of the top-ups they're having to pay, because they're also paying a council rent, the sort of council-based rent. And council rents are now going up as well. So, there's a change in Dublin, SISI, they're moving now to increase rents, in Dunloury, in different ways, in different places, but across the country, local authority rents are going up as well. So, you're going to get a double hit. For some of the most vulnerable people, because of what you're doing. Driving even more people into homelessness and crisis situations. And, just on the sort of protection of tenancy thing, it will be possible under this, in fact it is now, but this is a loophole, I guarantee you is going to be exploited by the landlords now, for those where there is a little bit of nominally greater protection because of the six-year thing, is if the house is not suitable to your need. If the residency is not suitable to your need. Do you know what that means? That means you can get evicted for being overcrowded. That's what it means. You have no kids and then you have a child, or you have another child, it's now not suitable to your needs, because you need a bigger place. Landlord can say, sorry, I'm evicting you because there's more people in the house than there was when I signed the lease to put you in. And that will be allowed for under the legislation. So they will find ways to do that. Do these corporate landlords do that kind of thing? Oh, they absolutely do. I have the living proof across from me in a place called St Helens Court. I don't know how many times I've raised it. Which is a multi-unit development across the road from my office in Dunnery. It is still, eight or nine years later, the majority of the units, all perfectly perfect units, right? The majority of them are sitting there empty. Since it was taken over by a vulture fund, then another vulture fund, who tried to mass evict the tenants, eventually drove them out. We've successfully resisted some of the attempts to evict people. But eventually, just sheer, they were, you know, the grind of being threatened constantly with eviction, having to go to the RTB. Eventually, people just leave. Some of them did get housed by the council. But the majority of those properties continue to sit there empty. Because it suits the vulture fund for them to be empty so that they can get beyond the legislation's, existing legislation's restrictions on rent increases. So that eventually, they can jack up the rents again and get around the existing RPZs. So that's what they do. They play the long game. The landlords play the long game. They inflict misery on the tenants, try to evict people, eventually drive them out, sit on the properties, in this case, for nearly a decade, perfectly empty, when there's people out on the street, homeless outside. Because it's profitable. Because it's profitable to do it. And the government allows that. It's absolutely shocking. And now it's going to facilitate even further that sort of profiteering. So, listen, there's a lot more to be said. And I'm sure my colleagues here will be saying many of those things. But this is a disgrace. And the best place for people who are worried about the housing crisis to be is out protesting. I hope we see more protests against this because the government have really revealed their true colours on this one and we need to fight back. People who want something done about this housing crisis, to get affordable rents, to get secure and affordable housing, to protect tenants' rights, need to begin to get organised on the streets. Thank you, Deputy Deputy Honour O'Brien.