Housing Bill to limit rent hikes criticised by Opposition

Opposition parties criticised the scope of the housing Bill introduced in the Dáil on Thursday aimed at limiting rent increases.

AAA-PBP TD Paul Murphy accused Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil of being “landlord parties’’, representing their interests and not those of tenants.

“Both genuflect before the free market, including in housing, and are unwilling to tackle the free market,’’ he added.

Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy said the commuter belt was spoken about as some sort of small peripheral part of Dublin.

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She said Meath, Kildare and Wicklow had a greater population than the combined city and county of Cork. “There has to be new thinking about those areas,’’ Ms Murphy added.

Labour TD Jan O’Sullivan said she hoped false hopes were not being created to be dashed. She said the 4 per cent cap was far, far higher than the consumer price index at present.

“In effect, this is a licence for landlords to increase rents more than they would be likely to be increased in normal circumstances in many parts of the country,’’ Ms O’Sullivan added. “It is far simpler, and it is fairer to tenants, to use the consumer price index.’’

Sinn Féin TD Eoin Ó Broin said Fianna Fáil, like Fine Gael, had a long history of direct intervention in the housing market in a number of ways.

He said the proposals were not, as the Minister had claimed, a major intervention in the market.

Price-setting mechanisms

“Rent supplement is a much more substantial intervention in terms of a price-setting mechanism in the private rental sector and is far more significant than this,’’ he added.

Mr Ó Broin said the Minister was continuing to tip the scales against those who most needed the Government’s help.

AAA-PBP TD Bríd Smith said that whatever the outcome of the legislation in the Dáil to curb rents, “the condition of tenants living in the private rental sector and the housing crisis in general will not be dealt with by the Government or its Fianna Fáil subsidiary”.

Ms Smith introduced the Residential Tenancies (Housing Emergency Measures in the Public Interest) Bill (Hempi) which would bring rents back to levels in place in designated areas at the end of 2011.

She said it would give immediate relief and breathing space to thousands of tenants, who are spending 50 per cent and more of their disposable income on rent. “In constitutional language, it is a just, rational and proportionate measure,” she said.

The Dublin South-Central TD said that, since 2011, the estimated consumer price index increase was 3.1 per cent but average rents in that time had risen by a great deal more – and in some parts of Dublin by 60 per cent.

Property rights

The legislation “shows it is perfectly possible, with the Constitution, to seek to interfere with property rights when faced with a housing crisis of this scale. This Bill is in essence a replica of the logic and argument used by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael when pushing Fempi [Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest],” she said.

Her AAA-PBP colleague Ruth Coppinger claimed evictions are “going to rocket” in January with rent increases being a key reason.

Introducing her own Bill aimed at strengthening tenants’ rights and restricting landlords’ right to evict, Ms Coppinger claimed that despite the Government’s rent control legislation, the Government was “taking no action” to deal with the housing crisis.

She said the latest figures show 6,709 people are homeless and in Dublin alone 736 families have been made homeless this year.

One of the key reasons is rent increases, and the second cause was evictions for “dubious reasons” including for the sale of a property. She said in other European countries – including Germany, the Netherlands and Scotland – “if somebody must sell a property they must do so with the tenant in situ”.

Her Anti-Evictions Bill introduces this requirement and provides for landlords to pay six months’ rent in compensation to tenants if they are evicted to allow a family member move it. It makes tenancies indefinite rather than for the Government’s proposed six-year cycle.

The two AAA-PBP Bills are expected to be debated in January.