Richard Boyd Barrett
Dún Laoghaire · People Before Profit-Solidarity · Ireland
“It is absolutely incredible that about 50% to 57% of all professional artists in this country live on or below the poverty line - three times the level of poverty in Irish society generally.”
“On a global level, the consumption of electricity by data centres is due to go up elevenfold by 2030. They are hoovering up the water resources and electricity resources of the planet. There will not be much human creativity, art or music if we have no water and no energy. That is what is going on with these people.”
“St. Joseph's Centre in Shankill is the largest care home dedicated solely to dementia care in the country. SIPTU members feel compelled to take industrial action tomorrow because of the failure of St. John of God's to recognise the work and duties that they do.”
“These people actually want to replace human beings and human creativity with AI. That would literally be the road to disaster for humanity. Some people think about AI as if it is cutting edge and the most advanced thing possible, but AI is like the Neanderthal.”
“Against that background, we are seeing these billionaires who run AI looking to steal en masse all of the artistic and creative output of humanity and to profit from it. The artists rightly are asking what the Government is going to do to prevent them making a bad situation for most artists and performers even worse.”
“I thank Deputy Ó Snodaigh for bringing this motion forward. As Deputy Paul Murphy indicated, People Before Profit is very happy to support and commend all the artists, organisations, musicians and so on who are campaigning to bring this forward.”
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“In reality, its failure to raise income thresholds means that every year social housing has become more segregated to those on the lowest incomes. It is concentrating the people on the lowest incomes and essentially ghettoising them. That also creates a problem for local authorities and the Government because it means the rental revenue coming in is less and is not enough to maintain the social housing. Is what we are saying unrealistic to do? The answer is "No". Luke French, a transition year student from St. Andrew's College who was in my office last week, did the research. He looked at Vienna where the thresholds mean that between 75% and 80% of people are eligible for social housing. In Sweden and Denmark, there are no income limits at all. Anybody can access social housing. If their income goes up, then the rent they pay goes up.”
“Then, in many cases they are left completely in limbo because their income is now too much to stay on the housing list after being on it all of those years, but too little to get a cost rental on income grounds, too little to get an affordable purchase home on any of the Government schemes and way too little to pay the extortionate rents and house prices out there on the market. You get punished for getting a pay rise or a promotion by being screwed on the housing front. In some cases, I have come across people left homeless and trapped in emergency accommodation because there is no chance they will ever get a social house as their income is too high. This is also leading to segregation, when Government policy is supposed to be about mixed tenure. They go on about it.”
“I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 to provide for universal access to social housing by abolishing income-related criteria. Why should we remove the income limits for social housing? I argue there are many good reasons to do it, and to do it urgently. Every week, every month and every year there is a constant and growing flow of households, which having waited sometimes in excess of ten years on housing lists, sometimes just before they are allocated a house are thrown off the housing list. This might be because they got a pay rise, an increment or a promotion. They get punished for that by being taken off a housing list they have been on sometimes for a decade or more.”
“If the Minister is talking about inclusion and the barriers that exist for women, people with disabilities and different groups, this is a serious barrier and we need to do something about it. Part of the reason I am in favour of a State construction company is so we can take on more apprentices on better rates and make it more attractive to be an apprentice. At a minimum, we need to raise those first-year and second-year rates to minimum-wage rates.”
“The number of people has increased, but it is still well short of what we need because, as we know, we have a housing emergency, we have water infrastructure that we have to develop and we have shortages in a whole number of areas, including a shortage of chefs. We have to make it more attractive. The further education committee is producing a report next week which goes into many aspects of this. I repeat that the wage for the first year is €7.67 per hour and for the second year is €11.50 per hour. If the average age of people going into apprenticeships is 21 to 22, it is just not a runner. I cannot say it is not a runner because some people do it, but it is tough going.”
“We have to make it more attractive and that means raising these pitifully low wages, particularly in the first and second years for apprentices.”
“The average starter age for somebody taking up an apprenticeship is 21 to 22 years. While many of those are living at home, many are not, and some want to get out of home. If the Minister of State wants to make it attractive, a first-year wage of €7.67 per hour or €11.50 per hour in the second year is not exactly an attractive option. If they are living out of home or if they have children, it is completely unsustainable. There are then added things like equipment costs, which are very significant for many apprentices, transport costs and so on. We have got a major problem in delivering on our housing goals. We are failing significantly. We are tens of thousands short of what we need annually in terms of houses to put roofs over the heads of the people in this country.”
“We need about 80,000 additional construction workers to meet our infrastructural needs and goals over the coming years. That means we have to make apprenticeships much more attractive for people to go into, so we have the tradespeople and the craftspeople to deliver on those infrastructural goals. We also have skills shortages in many other areas. There are many aspects to making it more attractive to take up apprenticeships but increasing the minimum payment, particularly in the first few years of apprenticeships, is critical. Does the Minister of State intend to raise these minimum pay rates for apprentices?”
“Among other things, the report deals with the issue of energy poverty. It might be of interest to the Taoiseach to know that disability groups, pensioner groups, trade unions and many others, as part of the recently established Affordable Ireland Campaign, will hold a major protest on 28 February. At the centre of that is a demand that this Government brings in an emergency winter payment, even at this late stage, and beyond that, cost-of-disability payments. Energy poverty is at the centre of it and how vulnerable people, older people and people with disabilities get particularly hard hit and have been particularly hard hit during the winter months. The removal of the energy credits and the lack of action by the Government on the profiteering of energy companies is resulting in energy poverty.”
“The monitoring stations were far away where they would not be able to capture the damage that was being done from the fires. The report shows significant negative health impacts. What people really want to know is that the Government is going to take it seriously, that there is a proper emergency response plan and that there is co-ordination between different Government agencies in assessing the health risk and, indeed, being able to respond to these emergencies.”
“In August of last year, I was out ill at the time, but Deputy Murphy raised on my behalf and our area's behalf the issue of gorse fires in Cherrywood. As the Taoiseach knows, Cherrywood is the biggest residential development the country. I did not realise, to be honest, that gorse is very dangerous when it is burned. It is very toxic. These fires went on, basically, for several weeks. The residents are saying that, really, there was no proper planning or co-ordination between different State agencies in terms of responding to this. The fires continued. People were passing the parcel between the HSE, the council, fire services and so on as to who was actually responsible. Meanwhile, these dangerous toxic pollutants were going into people's homes. The monitoring of them was completely inadequate because it was not incident-specific.”
“A huge amount of public money is going into their pockets. A lot of the private sector, which goes on about entrepreneurial ability and all the rest of it, is entirely dependent on State money. It is kind of ironic. There is often this counter-positioning of the private sector versus the public sector. In truth, however, a huge amount of the private sector is completely dependent on money from the public sector. We should at least demand quality and proper treatment of workers.”
“Things that used to be done by the public sector are increasingly outsourced to private companies, with very questionable benefits and, in many cases, serious adverse consequences at all levels for workers, including the pay and conditions of workers. It also affects things like tax revenue. I remember when I was out supporting the pickets of bin workers of a privatised bin company, Greyhound Recycling. It is a service that used to be carried out by Dublin City Council. They pointed out at the time that Greyhound Recycling, the private company they worked for which treated them so poorly they felt the need to go on strike, was tax resident in a tax haven. Should that not be a criterion we look at? We are awarding contracts to companies that do not pay tax here or are actively trying to avoid paying tax.”
“We pump huge amounts of money into film production companies and the employment rights and conditions of workers are not fully vindicated, even though large amounts of public money are being invested. These are just some examples. We must consider whether we should be doing this ourselves directly rather than going out to tender in the first place. Would we have more control over the process? Could we guarantee quality and the right pay and conditions of employees? These are all considerations, rather than increasingly defaulting to outsourcing these things. I will say – it may be an ideological point – that the privatisation of a lot of things that used to be done by the public sector is an ongoing agenda, one we have seen over the last 20 or 30 years.”
“Kevin Reynolds rightly made the case that private companies will not want to make a lot of the public service broadcasting programmes that we need because they would not consider it profitable or important, or they would be wary of the legal risks involved. They might not have resources necessary to make them even if they wanted to, so the stuff that we need our public service broadcaster to do will just not happen. Under the guise of reforming RTÉ, the public service broadcaster, we are actually dismantling it. The workers are very angry about that. They are absolutely right to be. I tried to highlight the consequences that can have in areas like the film industry where conditions are affected.”
“Essentially, privatisation is undermining the wages and conditions of workers. I am happy to support the Bill. Whenever the State is considering outsourcing, it should also consider whether it would be better for it to do something directly. I will mention something that is topical. Kevin Reynolds from RTÉ was on "Morning Ireland" earlier. He stated that workers are now voting no-confidence in the management of RTÉ, although they are really pointing through that to Government policy. Essentially, the ability of RTÉ to produce public service broadcasting is being dismantled. They are absolutely right. It will all be outsourced to independent private companies to do the job of public service broadcasting.”
“That is also why the company finds it more difficult to get drivers and why their buses are more unreliable. They do not have enough drivers because they pay them poorly. Dublin Bus is not much better, but it is a little better in terms of its treatment of bus workers, mechanics and so on. Ultimately, that impacts on the quality of the public bus service because it is determined by price competition. What they are competing in respect of is, essentially, a race to the bottom in terms of the treatment of employees. That is consequently very stressful for the workers, who are under pressure. There is a box system, and there are people on the radio who say that drivers either have to slow down or speed up because of traffic congestion, which is completely out of their control in any event. This is all to meet certain criteria.”
“The article mentions areas like construction, but not just construction, where companies are working together to see how they can bid up the price or co-ordinate in order to get the best price from the State for contracts. In the context of what is proposed in the Bill, it is eminently sensible to have these considerations much higher up the agenda when we are contracting out or procuring projects. Bríd Smith, the former Deputy, introduced a Bill in the previous Dáil to ensure that there should be no competition on wages and conditions of employment when it comes to tendering for State contracts. I will take the example of public transport and Go-Ahead. Wages and conditions are significantly less favourable for workers in Go-Ahead, which is providing public transport services.”
“Often, people might bid low on price but you get a higher quality for a higher price. The one with the higher quality may often end up being lower in the end because we know that sometimes it is the cowboys who engage in the race to the bottom and the type of lowball bidding that gets them the contract, and then it ends up costing a lot more. They have the State over a barrel because they got the contract and the State feels it is in too deep to say anything and they can ratchet up the price. I do not know if it was mentioned, but I was just reading an article about the watchdog - the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC - that refers to cartels that are rigging their bids for State projects.”
“There is water ingress in the car park that is in the vicinity of the electrics. It is a mess. As stated, people have only been living there for a year. That shows why quality is important. Somebody can just bid on price, but if they are cowboys, they can cut corners. I have heard anecdotally and seen some evidence in social housing provision of specifications being lowered. In fact, in the instance I am talking about - what has happened needs to be investigated - the developer originally planned to build it for the private sector and when it was contracted by an AHB to deliver social housing, the specifications were lowered. I think that is what actually happened but I am just speculating. The Bill proposes that there should be a 50:50 quality-price ratio for large projects.”
“I thank Deputy Gibney for bringing forward this important Bill and Seanadóir Higgins for originally instigating it. I am very happy to support the objectives behind the Bill. As has been said, it is very straightforward that price should not be the only consideration when awarding State contracts. That is a no-brainer, not least because I am dealing with major problems, as I am sure others are. The national children's hospital is the obvious big example, but, at local level, I am dealing with an apartment complex that was delivered as social housing. The tenants in it tell me that it is going to have to be pulled down. They want out, although they have only been in it for a year. That is just dreadful. After waiting for a decade or more to get their social homes, the building is rotten with mould and damp.”
“No rents are affordable under the HAP limits anyway but now there are definitely going to be none because all of the new tenancies after 1 March will go up to market levels, which are absolutely unaffordable. Has the Tánaiste got anything to say other than at some point the supply is going to come on stream? Seriously, that is not a response to people who are terrified for their kids about what is going to happen next week.”
“There was 103,000 landlords two years ago and now there are 105,000. There are 2,000 more landlords than there were and more tenancies. So, the Government does not need to enrich them even more at the expense of tenants. What are Michael, Shannon and their two kids supposed to do? Does the Tánaiste think it is acceptable that their two vulnerable children with special needs go into a hostel, which will damage and traumatise them? Shannon was bursting into tears with fear and she is joining the parents of thousands of other children, many with special needs, and parents who are struggling. Their chances of getting out of emergency accommodation are now diminished because there will be no affordable rents.”
“Is it not the case that after 1 March their prospect of finding an affordable rental property is now absolutely gone, as it is impossible at the moment, and that their vulnerable children with special needs are now facing the prospect of going into a hostel? Shannon was breaking down in tears in front of me with her partner saying her kids cannot go into that situation. What does the Tánaiste have to say to Michael and Shannon?”
“They are facing eviction in the next week by a small landlord, which will still be allowed under the legislation, through no fault of their own. They are facing the prospect of emergency accommodation. They are nine years on a council list but with no prospect of a council house. They are on the three-bed list. They have been approved for HAP and told to go out and try to find a HAP tenancy but the limit is €1,912. That is the homeless HAP limit. They can pay a bit of a top-up on that which they cannot really afford. The cheapest rent today in south Dublin is €3,100 for the number of bedrooms they need. As the report confirms today, nothing is available in most areas of the country within the HAP limits. The same family has been hit by the council rent hikes that the councils are putting up. How is the Bill going to help them?”
“No doubt the property speculators, the corporate landlords and the vulture funds will be rubbing their hands with glee because they are set to be able to ratchet up rents and make even more profits off the back of the housing misery huge numbers of working people, young people and students in this country are experiencing. The human cost of all of this is going to be significant. I will provide an example, namely that of Michael and Shannon, a young couple in their 20s. Michael is working and Shannon was working but had to give it up because of their housing dilemma. They have two young children, a two-year-old who came in here with them last night and a nine-year-old daughter, both of whom have special needs.”
“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 a Bill relating to the RTB that is going to mean further hikes in rents which are already unaffordable, worsening an already dire housing crisis. The Government rejected amendments which proposed that rents be kept at affordable levels and that no-fault evictions should not continue. In the context of the purpose of the Bill, the Minister stated, "We do not want rents for long-term tenancies to fall behind market rents." The purpose of it therefore is to increase rents and make sure they do not fall behind a market that is completely unaffordable.”
“We need to freeze that possibility until we sort out this mess, which is certainly not the fault of this family or these kids. Whatever differences we have on policy and all the rest, we should say we will not put them into a worse position, an unacceptable position, until we have managed to sort out the bigger problem. That is what we are asking. Can the Minister tell me he has a better answer for them or is he just saying that he, I and Deputies Ó Broin, Sheehan and Hearne have to tell our constituents that there is nothing we can do and that at some point it might improve - we cannot say when exactly - when the investors in New York decide to reduce rents?”
“I hear from the Minister, as I have heard from successive Ministers, that the Government is developing policies to prevent people going into homelessness. If the Minister will not do what is in this amendment, will he please tell me what he is doing to prevent this and other families going into homelessness? Tell me. Is there another answer I am missing? Is there something I have not heard? Is there some policy the Minister is developing that will prevent this situation where the family has to end up in emergency accommodation next week? If the Minister cannot give that alternative suggestion, the best one going is the one being proposed in these amendments, which is, even on an emergency basis, to say “sorry, you will not be allowed to evict these people into homelessness".”
“I think the Minister would do anything – in fact I do not want to personalise this, because that is wrong too. However, any parent would do absolutely anything to prevent their child being put in that sort of situation. We should not be in a situation where we have to turn around and tell people that there is nothing we can do, and that their daughter and son with special needs who are vulnerable will just have to suck it up, as they will, and will have to go into that hostel even though it will be very bad for them. I seriously worry about the mental health of the mother in particular, after the engagement I had with her, about how she will be able to cope so it is just not good enough to say that.”
“The Minister and I disagree. He is absolutely right that no one has a monopoly on compassion, but I honestly believe the Government has an obligation, as do I as a representative, to say something to the family I am talking about. The Minister has a responsibility for all the families who come into him. It is just not good enough to tell people to engage with their local authorities about emergency accommodation. Does the Minister think it is? I certainly do not. I have described the situation of the couple and I could describe an endless number of other cases that are on my books at the moment and people who are coming in week in, week out. They are absolutely terrified in their situations for their children. Would the Minister allow his children to be put in a situation that would damage them?”
“The dictionary definition of "pandemic" does not just refer to a global epidemic but is also applicable to something affecting a whole country. There is, in fact, a pandemic in Ireland. There is a pandemic of homelessness and a pandemic of housing crisis. If ever a housing and homelessness crisis could be described as a pandemic, it is the one we are living through. It is a pandemic in the literal meaning of the word and it justifies taking emergency measures to prevent damage being done to the children who will be homeless if we do not come up with a better answer than sending their parents to engage with the local authority about emergency accommodation in Dublin city centre.”
“We really are on the horns of a dilemma in that families might have a chance of getting a property that is very far from perfect and in which they will be overcrowded but if they do so, they are then vulnerable to eviction by a landlord. The latter might say the property is not suitable to their needs if at any point that landlord decides he or she could get more rent by getting in people for whom the property is deemed appropriate to their needs. That is the mess we are in. or more to the point, that is the mess in which families in this situation find themselves. They are absolutely terrified for the well-being of their children and for themselves. The Minister could stop this, even on a temporary basis. He said we should thank God we are not in a pandemic.”
“Indeed, it will be worse overcrowding because they will probably all be in one room together, as are many of the homeless families with whom I deal. We can put such families into one bedroom in emergency accommodation but the councils cannot give them a two-bedroom home because that is deemed to be overcrowding and not to meet their housing need. There is a dilemma here for local authorities and it will be even more so the case if this Bill is enacted, because one of the grounds on which evictions are still allowed is that landlords, big and small, can evict if their property is not suitable to a family's needs, which includes where there is overcrowding. That is a justification for evicting families.”
“People can forget about getting such a property from the council. We are talking about being on the list for a decade. In their desperation, the parents asked whether there was any chance they could look for a two-bedroom property. It would still be very difficult to find one under HAP but there might be some chance of it. However, that is not allowed because it would mean they were moving into overcrowding. This is the dilemma. We go to the council and suggest that people in this desperate situation, to avoid homelessness, be allowed to move into an overcrowded place. Of course, if these parents are made homeless in the next week, which is the deadline by which they must leave, they will definitely be overcrowded if they have to go into a hostel in the city.”
“Given where they are on the list, they will be languishing in emergency housing for years. Let us be under absolutely no illusion that already vulnerable children with special needs will be damaged by that experience, possibly forever. There is not a shadow of a doubt about it. The best we can offer them and the many people like them is to say they should engage with the local authority. This point is relevant to the provisions in the Bill. In the case of the parents I mentioned, because their daughter will soon turn ten, their need is for a three-bedroom home. When there are children of opposite sexes, they are not supposed to share a room after one of them reaches ten years of age. The parents now must look for three-bedroom accommodation, which is completely impossible to find.”
“That is why the mother of these children kept bursting into tears. I could see it. She was envisaging in her head the prospect of bringing her kids into a hostel. She immediately burst into tears. Her partner was desperately trying to comfort her. Has the Minister of State got any other advice? We are asking for the prevention of evictions of vulnerable children like these and of two lovely parents in their 20s, who are both working hard to try to make their way in life and contribute to society. If the Minister will not do what is asked for in these amendments, which is to prevent people like them from being evicted into homelessness, can he offer anything more than saying, when I have explained the reality of the situation, that they should engage with the local authority regarding emergency accommodation?”
“They are waiting for those services as well to get an occupational therapist for their kid and what they will do if they have to move to another area even if they tried to move to another area. It is interesting that the homeless HAP limit that they were given to allow them to look for somewhere is high as €2,525. They are looking all the time and cannot find anywhere. The Minister wants those rents to go even higher. They will in my area. They will go up to €3,000 and €3,500. In the hopeless situation that they are in, all the Minister of State said is that they should engage with the local authority about emergency accommodation. I said to him that they are being told, and families like them are being told week in and week out, is to go to a hostel in Dublin city centre with their kids. They would be absolutely terrified to do.”
“It was interesting to hear what the Minister of State said in response to the instance that I set out of the couple and their child. I was just looking through the details of the case. They brought their youngest child with them. As I was reading over the details of the case, I realised that they have a daughter as well. Their son is two-years-old with special needs and autism. He was just diagnosed. They also have a nine-year-old daughter who has complex special needs. I was looking at the email they sent me describing their extreme anxiety and concern about what homelessness would mean and all of that for them in terms of the services that they are trying to access.”
“The Government has a choice not to do that and say it is not acceptable. It is done in other countries. The Government says it is not evicting people into homelessness, that that is not going to happen because it is wrong, and it can do something else to make sure that does not happen. It can provide secure, affordable housing for people like that couple and their child.”
“It thinks that in order to incentivise investors, this is legitimate. It is not legitimate. It is illegitimate. It is absolutely outrageous that it can be allowed to happen. Can the Minister of State honestly stand over that situation? That is just this week's example for me in my office. I am sure others can talk about their experiences in the last week or two of the same desperate situations. It really struck me just how confused and desperate and helpless people were, pleading for help, and I am just thinking there is nothing I can do because that is allowed. It is allowed that they can be thrown out and allowed that they have nowhere to be sent but a hostel. Very often in my area people say they would rather sleep in their car or pitch a tent somewhere than go into town into those hostels. That is the human reality of it all.”
“We know, as a Deputy said earlier, that it is people with spreadsheets in Antwerp and New York looking at Dublin and saying they cannot put the rent up to €2,500 in certain circumstances so they might not build there, because it is not profitable enough. The human consequence is that lovely couple, the tears and the child going in. To my mind that is State neglect. We passed that referendum on children and passed the Children First guidelines, which say the State is culpable of an abuse if a child is neglected. To my mind, the State is guilty of an abuse of that child and of the wilful neglect of the well-being of that child if the child is allowed to go into homelessness. I hear the Government say it is working on prevention of people going into homelessness. No, it is not. It is allowing that to happen.”
“Can anything justify that being done to those people, in the Minister of State's mind? Can anything justify them being evicted in that circumstance to satisfy the investors, to incentivise? What we are being told is that has to be done, to incentivise the investors. It is a small landlord, by the way, doing that. They were not saying awful things about the small landlord. It is you guys who manage the sector. It is you guys who create and sustain a sector that allows that to happen. To my mind, if the consequence of the sort of rental sector we set up is that this happens to this family and this child, there is something wrong. There is something wrong with that. It is just not right for that to happen to that child or that mother. It is just not right; I do not care what justification the Minister of State wants to try to put on it.”
“Can anything justify the tears of that mother? Can anything justify that little child who is about two or three with special needs being driven into a hostel in town? They are absolutely terrified. I do not think they will go to a hostel in town, to tell the truth. I would say they would probably do almost anything bar go there. It is a long way out from any sort of family support networks they have in Dún Laoghaire, but that is what people get offered most of the time in Dún Laoghaire because we do not even have enough emergency accommodation there. People get sent into town to a hostel. They might be in there, and then after a year or two they might get into emergency accommodation in Dún Laoghaire. Then they do not know how long they might be there. They could be just languishing there for God knows how long.”
“They asked if there was anything I could do, and so on. When you look at their position on the list, you would think not, unless these people get prioritised, and to get prioritised is extremely difficult. The bar is getting higher and higher to get medical priority because a feature of these things is people who often are not doctors second-guessing people who are writing letters on behalf of people, where doctors say this person should be prioritised, that this kid should not go into homelessness because it would be really bad for them, or that this person because of their disability should not be in a hostel. The council, because it has nowhere to put them anyway, says it cannot prioritise them because it is not a severe enough disability. My question to the Minister is whether anything can justify this.”
“Her partner had to keep reaching over to hold her because, as much as she was trying to keep it together to explain the situation they were in, she just kept getting overwhelmed with fear because their date for eviction is this week. They have done absolutely nothing wrong, nothing at all. They are terrified about the prospect of what is going to happen to them and their child with special needs. Both of them told me that they themselves, later in life, have been diagnosed with special needs and are on the spectrum. They are finding it really difficult to cope with all the forms they have to fill out, and trying to understand HAP, homeless HAP and the thresholds. If they get the working family payment, what might that mean? Would it drive them over the social housing income threshold and make their situation even worse?”
“It is worthwhile at times, when we are discussing these things, which can seem quite dry and technical, to just remind ourselves of the human reality. Literally every week, I have somebody coming in to me who is facing a date for eviction. This week, given the particular week that is in it, I had a lovely young couple come in to me. Both of them have been working. They are probably about their mid-20s. They are a lovely couple. Throughout the whole engagement with this couple, they had with them their young son, who has special needs. He is about two or three - a lovely little fellow. He has the same name as my son, coincidentally. He was sitting there smiling at me the whole time during the meeting. His mother was just bawling crying the whole time.”
“The reason for this is because huge profits are being made by people who are landlords. How could huge profits not be made when they are charging the sort of extortionate rents that currently exist out in the market?”
“We have had a long debate on this amendment, so the last point I will make concerns why the Government keeps recycling the mythology that there has been a big exodus of landlords. There has not been a big exodus of landlords. There has been an increase in landlords. In 2023, there were 101,000 landlords in the country. I am sorry, that is not right. I do not have the right figures in front of me. In any event, the number of landlords has increased since 2023 and the number of tenancies has increased, so the private rental sector has increased and the number of landlords has increased over the past two years. If the Minister's argument is that unless we do tis, there will be a continued exodus, I suggest that there is a problem with his logic. Some might be leaving but there is a net increase in the number of people.”
“Is the Minister honestly saying to me that he thinks that if he does this, rents will fall at some point? I am interested to hear when he thinks that point is going to arrive because it has never happened before except during the crash and even then it did not happen for very long. Rents went down after the crash but only briefly. Can he tell me when he thinks rents are going to come down? Probably if he even thinks about that question, the likelihood that rents are ever going to come down is a total mirage and fantasy. Does he honestly believe that an average rent of, say, €30,000 per year or €2,500 per month, which is about €30,000 of after-tax income, is a reasonable level of rent to have in the capital city? How does he think people are supposed to pay that? I know very few people who think that is a sustainable rent.”