Meath West TD Peadar Tóibín has accused the government of enacting policies which would lead to record rents and mass evictions – saying what was happening in relation to housing was not an accident and that “rent in Dublin is now for the rich”.
The Aontú leader told the Dáil yesterday that rent reforms were designed as a “market activation tool” triggering EU-wide high rents and “the equivalent of a small Irish town being evicted in just one quarter.”
Rents in the capital are now for the rich as a direct result of the removal of rent pressure zones that were keeping a lid on spiralling rents, he said.
However, during the debate An Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that “any international organisation analysing the rental market or any property market has said time and again that rent controls or the freezing of rents just reduces supply, kills the market for the long term and will keep prices at too high a level.”
“The Housing Commission recommended that we had to change the rental situation in terms of the rent pressure zones,” he said.
Speaking at heated Leader’s Questions, dominated by the rent reforms, Deputy Tóibín asked that the damaging new rules be reversed, in the face of proof they are worsening the housing crisis for hard-pressed citizens.
Deputy Tóibín said: “The average rent in Dublin is heading towards an eye-watering €3,000 a month. That makes Dublin the highest in the EU for one and two-bed apartments. Rent in Dublin is now for the rich.
“The number of evictions increased by 50% in the last year first three months of the year. Your policies have led to 7,062 evictions in just one quarter.
“That’s the equivalent of the population of a full Irish town, evicted in just one quarter. This has serious economic and human consequences.”
He added: “Your government has been in power for 10 years and in that time, rents have increased by 80%. Rents have increased 13 of the last 14 years.
“This is not by accident, you wanted this, you knew your policies would actively push up rents, this was meant to happen. It was actually a market activation tool.
“But you could have done this without hitting hard-pressed renters. You could have cut VAT, you could have cut the connection fees on house building – they work up about €50,000 on each housing unit and would have increased viability and supply .
“But planning and infrastructure is so dysfunctional, even if you get more builders it won’t make a difference. Planning, building, licensing, procurement and judicial reviews are all glacial. Wil the Government reverse this rent policy?”
He raised the case of Wicklow couple Ciaran and Jessie Redmond, who are facing homelessness with their daughter Chanel, who has leukaemia. They are above the income threshold for supports, but they cannot afford to rent or buy.
But An Taoiseach said that recommendations for reform had come from the Housing Commission, the ESRI, and the Housing Agency. “The bottom line was this. What was in place could not be sustained. Equally, it is about supply. In terms of our proposals and what is happening, we had 36,000 additional houses last year. Supply ultimately will moderate rent increases.”
He told the Dáil: “We have a housing crisis here but all I see from the Opposition, Sinn Féin in particular, is empty rhetoric, no solutions and the usual sloganeering. That will not build houses. I have a document here with all the objections of those parties’ representatives. They objected to housing project after housing project.”