Richard Boyd Barrett warns RTB bill will raise rents

Tawnaiste, despite the opposition of People Before Profit and most of the rest of the opposition and protests last night, the Government insisted on ramming through an RTB bill that is going to mean further hikes in rents which are already unaffordable, worsening an already dire housing crisis. You also incidentally rejected amendments proposing that rents should be kept at affordable levels and that no-fault evictions should not continue. It was absolutely clear, by the way, in the logic of the bill, as explained by the Minister, this is what he said, it was the purpose of the bill, we do not want rents for long-term tenancies to fall behind market rents. So the purpose of the legislation was to increase rents, to make sure they did not fall behind a market that is completely unaffordable. No doubt the property speculators, the corporate landlords and the vulture funds will be rubbing their hands with glee as they are set to be able to ratchet up rents and make even more profits on the backs of the housing misery of huge numbers of working people, of young people, of students in this country. But the human cost of all of this is going to be very significant. This week, just to give you one example, Michael and Shannon, a young couple in their twenties, both Michael's working, Shannon was working, she had to give it up because of their current homeless or housing dilemma. They have two young children, one two years old who came in with them and a daughter nine, both who have special needs and they are facing eviction in the next week from a small landlord. This will still be allowed under the legislation through no fault of their own and they are facing the prospect of emergency accommodation because the only thing, they are nine years on a council list but no prospect of a council house. They are on the three bed list. They have been approved for HAP, told to go out and try and find a HAP tenancy but the limit is €1,912 HAP limit, homeless HAP limit. You can pay a bit of a top up on that which you cannot really afford. The cheapest rent today in South Dublin is €3,100 for the bed size that they need. As the report confirms today, HAP limits, nothing is available in most areas of the country within the HAP limits. The same family have been hit by the council rent hikes that the councils are putting up. Now, I ask you, how is the bill going to help them? Isn't it the case that after March 1st their prospect of finding an affordable rental property is now absolutely gone and it is impossible at the moment and that their children, vulnerable children with special needs, are now facing the prospect of going into a hostel and Shannon was breaking down in tears in front of me with her partner saying my kids cannot go into that situation. What do you have to say to Michael Shannon, I say to all people across the country in need of housing that every action we take is to increase the number of homes that are available to rent or buy in this country. That is not just one type of home, it is more social homes, it is more affordable homes, it is homes through the LDA, it is quite an incredible number of homes now receiving some level of subvention from the stage to be built and of course it is also private homes because private homes and private investment are good and there are lots of people who want to buy their own home and see either themselves or indeed their adult children be able to move into one of those homes too. I do take the point in relation to the HAP limits. I know you have been a strong advocate of this and there is a commitment in the housing plan that will be concluded in the first half of this year. I would push back around, as you would expect me to, around the point you make in relation to kind of this corporate landlord capture. I have heard a lot of this in the last number of days. I do think this is in the space of misinformation. Small landlords make up 88% of all landlords in this country. They are providing 45% of all private tenancies and these reforms are explicitly designed to also help retain landlords while improving tenant security. We have to do both. If a small landlord leaves the market, what happens? Tenants lose the ability to rent a home. There is a cause and effect here and small landlords and landlords are not the enemy of the public good, as is often portrayed by the far left. It is a vital part. Who is going to rent the homes if there are not landlords? And forget, you do not agree with my political outlook on the world, but Michael Byrne of the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice in UCD. He specifically said, you guys had your go, he specifically said what is being missed in the current discussion is that the new legislation, the one we passed last night in this House, is designed, once established, to reduce the level of notice of terminations. So that's what the professor in the School of Social Work and Social Justice at our bill is trying to do. When it is enacted, reduce the number of notices of terminations. So yes, there is absolutely, as is always the case, teasing through, debating, discussing different elements of the legislation, what people think is good, what people think is bad, what people think should be better. But we should not misrepresent the purpose here. When people who are looking at this bill, including Dublin Simon, by the way, who acknowledge and welcome the tenant protection elements of this legislation, while having different views with us on other elements of the bill as well. So we have to increase supply. We have to keep landlords in the market, particularly the small landlords. And at the same time, we have to make sure we have, for the very first time really in Ireland, a nationwide permanent system of tenant protections. In relation to any individual case, and I don't say this dismissively of the very serious situation your constituents that you rightly raise are facing. I don't have the specific information relation to any individual case, but we are increasing social homes. We're increasing housing supply. We've been very clear on what we're going to do in relation to HAP. And there are, we are now living in a country again, where almost 100 homes are being built every single day. Thank you, Madam Minister. Deputy Boyd Barrett. Factually, the number of landlords has increased in the last two years. They're not leaving the market. There was 103,000 two years ago. There's 105,000. 2,000 more landlords than there was, more tenancies. So you don't need to enrich them even more at the expense of tenants. Now, my question to you is, what are Michael and Shannon supposed to do and their two kids? Do you think it is acceptable that their two vulnerable children with special needs should go into a hostel, which will damage and traumatise them? Shannon was bursting out in tears with fear. And she is joining thousands of other children, many of them with special needs, parents struggling. And their chances of getting out of emergency accommodation are now diminished because there will be no rents. There's no rents anyway that are affordable under the HAP limits. But now there's definitely going to be none because all of the new tenancies after March 1st will go up to market levels which are absolutely unaffordable. So have you got anything to say other than, what, at some point, at some point, the supply is going to come on stream? I mean, seriously, that is not a response to people who are terrified for their kids about what's going to happen next week. But, Deputy, it's not at some point supply is coming on stream. Supply is increasing, despite your best efforts, whether it's objecting in your constituency to housing developments. No, it is. That's a cause and effect. If you object to a house, if you do too, I know Mary Lou does, if you object, if you object to houses, I've never, I've never. You don't like the truth? I've never objected to a home. And nobody in this house should. And I don't care what party you're in. You should stop objecting to houses. Everybody should. There's a housing emergency. End of. Surely to God we could agree on that. Surely to God we should agree on that. Can I, may I, may I. Look, would you allow the answer? So that's the question. That's my political point that I'm entitled to make. Nobody in this house should object to housing. I feel very strongly on that and I hope we can all agree on that. I'm not sure whether you're upset that there's more landlords in the market or not by what you said there. I think if we were to see an increase, that's a good thing. But your figures aren't comparing like with like. Because as you know well, we now register AHBs in relation to tenancies as well. So you're not comparing like with like. And if you think that there's a flurry of people putting up their hand and saying, want to be a small landlord, you're not engaging. Thank you, Prime Minister. And that concludes Libra's question. I would hope that your office and everybody should be near Redtown County Council would engage very proactively to assist that. We move now. And just, excuse me, Deputy,