Residential Tenancies and Valuation Bill 2020: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2020-07-31 ============================================================ Lynn Boylan (SF), Agricultural Panel I welcome the Minister of State. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the rental sector was already in crisis. We all know that rents were at unsustainably high levels. The daft.ie index for the second quarter of 2020 tells us that new asking rents average €1,400 across the State. In Dublin, the average new rent is more than €2,000. The RTB index shows an average monthly rent of €1,200 nationwide, and €1,700 in Dublin. The programme for Government promised to improve security and affordability for renters. Fianna Fáil's manifesto went even further and promised a new deal for renters. Yet, the first act of this Government is to remove protections for the majority of renters in the State. The bans on evictions, notices to quit and rent increases introduced on 27 March gave renters a much-needed break. Much more than that, the emergency measures proved what lots of us have said all along, namely, that the vacant possession notices to quit were the single biggest cause of families entering into homelessness. As a result of these emergency measures, we now have the lowest number of families living in emergency accommodation in three years. This Bill has just whipped the rug out from underneath renters' feet. From 2 August, rent increases will be back and eviction notices will be back. The Bill does nothing for the renter who may have lost part of his or her income due to the pandemic, and who cut back on everything else to make the rent. The couple struggling to save for a mortgage while simultaneously trying to pay €2,000 in rent once again face rent increases. The Bill does nothing for them. The Government will tell us that it could not extend the emergency measures because their legal basis was a health emergency. Yet the Bill passed through the Dáil on the day we had the biggest spike in Covid-19 case numbers in weeks, with 85 new cases. We are still in the midst of a pandemic. Is the Minister of State seriously saying that the families who are having their protections removed by this Bill will be safer in emergency accommodation if there is an increase in Covid-19 numbers? Not only are the protections so narrow that they exclude most renters, they are also cumbersome and complicated. Even Threshold, the country's front-line housing advice and advocacy service, has had to criticise them. In drafting this Bill, the Minister clearly did not give any thought whatsoever to renters who have literacy problems, mental health issues or for whom English is not their first language. They will have to navigate their way through protections that are as clear as mud and that will be a gift to the small number of rogue landlords who will easily exploit the loopholes. My colleague, Senator Moynihan, mentioned that we only have to look at the poor uptake of the Covid housing assistance payment to know that not all renters are aware of their rights or how to access the supports that are available to them. Perhaps the most telling demonstration of how bad this Bill is was the fact that the Government could not even get the Minister of State at the Department of Rural and Community Development, Deputy Joe O'Brien, to support it. What is very interesting about the manner in which the latter abstained on the Bill last night is that he has worked for years in homeless services. If he could not, in good conscience, support this Bill because he knows it will make matters much worse, I do not know how anybody could support it. The Government criticised the Opposition and said we were being negative but it refused to accept any of our amendments, which are eminently sensible, constructive and try to help. It could have chosen to extend the ban on notices to quit, evictions and rent increases until the end of the year. It could have amended the emergency legislation to address the small number of cases of wilful non-payment of rent, serious anti-social behaviour or where a landlord is at risk of becoming homeless. Instead, it is dead set on ploughing ahead with a bad Bill that will negatively impact on the rental market, hurt renters and take money out of the local economy because with rising rents tenants will have less disposable income. I will table amendments to try to rectify some of the worst aspects of the Bill but I call on the Green Party Senators to do the right thing and follow the example of their colleagues. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2020-07-31/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:31+00:00 Sitting date: 2020-07-31