Bríd Smith calls housing crisis a 'slow train crash'
Bríd Smith spoke in the House on 6 July 2021 about the housing and private rental crisis, criticising government delays and calling for stronger tenant protections. She welcomed the Bill before the House but said it was insufficient, accusing the government of applying temporary fixes while the crisis worsens.
Main criticisms of the government's response
Bríd Smith accused the government of waiting 12 months to act and of repeatedly applying temporary measures that amount to "sticking a plaster repeatedly over a gaping wound." She likened the deterioration in the private rental sector and tenants' rights to watching "a slow train crash," with predictable and worsening consequences.
HEMPI Bill and past proposals
She recalled People Before Profit's 2016 HEMPI Bill (Housing Emergency Measures and Public Interest) and efforts to force NAMA to prioritise public housing and public lands, to stop rent increases and to reconnect rents with wages and inflation. She framed those measures as deliberate responses to the rental crisis and a challenge to established policy.
Property rights and constitutional arguments
Smith challenged defenders of property rights, arguing the constitutional objection to rent limits is bogus and pointing to the FEMPI Acts and pension measures taken during the financial crisis as precedent for emergency legislation. She said legal and constitutional experts have indicated the State can legislate to ban or limit rent increases and to strengthen security of tenure.
Elite interests, landlords and the root causes
She accused many TDs of having vested landlord interests and said the obsession with property rights is embedded in the country's elite because property has been a principal source of wealth. She argued this material base explains resistance to reforms and insisted the era of landlord-dominated policy must end.
Far-right exploitation of the crisis
Smith warned that far-right and fascist groups have exploited the housing crisis to spread division, citing by-election material blaming immigration rather than landlords, developers and political failures. She criticised the government for allowing those narratives to go unchecked and called for a mass movement to demand an affordable, secure rental sector as a basic human right.
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Margaret, in answer to the last question, why does the Government have to wait 12 months to do anything, they park everything for 12 months, no matter what we bring before the House, but I want to welcome the Bill and thank you for bringing it to the House, watching the ongoing housing crisis and specifically the issues in the private renter sector, in the crisis of tenants rights, security of tenure and rent security over the last five years has been really akin to watching a slow train crash, everyone can see where we're headed, everyone can see what will happen and everyone can see the consequences of that crash, yet nothing, effectively nothing has been done to stop or ameliorate that crash and its consequences, instead the Government in its responses has at best played the part of providing emergency services to the crash, in effect sticking a plaster repeatedly over a gaping wound. One of the first things People Before Profit did when we were elected in 2016 was to address this crisis, or to attempt to address it with a Bill, and specifically rents, we tried to get NAMA to prioritise providing public housing and public lands, we tried to stop rent increases and bring rents back to the connection with people's wages and inflation, and we called that Bill HEMPI Bill, Housing Emergency Measures and Public Interest, and it was a deliberate play on the FEMPI Acts passed by Fianna Fáil and the Greens, and later Fianna Fáil and Labour Government using it, because we wanted to highlight the absolute hypocrisy and double standards that surround the debates on rent freezes and rent issues generally. And let me remind some of the defenders of property rights here about the Constitution, those legal experts here who faint when anyone mentions rent increase prohibitions, that the Constitution or its protection for property rights did not prevent major parties from dipping into the pensions of the public sector and other workers via the FEMPI Acts from 2010 onwards. They did not shirk behind constitutional niceties when it came to bailing out the banks, they justified it by calling the acts that permitted it emergency legislation. We had a financial crisis, so we permitted the trouncing of private property rights, which is what pensions are. We have a housing crisis, a crisis that is blighting a whole generation, a crisis that sees families roaming our streets while trying to access emergency accommodation, a crisis that sees record-breaking numbers of people sleeping rough, a crisis that sees record-breaking numbers of people dying on our streets from homelessness, a crisis that sees people terrified of the next rent increase or receiving a notice to quit from their landlord, and a crisis that sees a crisis that sees gleeful prospective brochures from investors from investors from investor funds telling them that things can only get better. But the same voices and the same ministers who bravely ignore property rights when it came to the financial emergency legislation are vocal defenders of property rights when it comes to the housing crisis. Now, I believe the constitutional argument is bogus entirely. We can, if we have the political will to do so, legislate to ban or limit rent increases and to confer greater security of tenure for tenants. There have been many legal and constitutional experts who have stated this clearly, and I won't go over that again here now, we don't have time. But the question is, why have we never done so until attempting to do so now? Why has this been used time and time again to pretend that we can't legislate to protect people from the enormous burden that the current rents are having on them and their families? We've pointed out before in this House the large and disproportionate numbers of TDs who are landlords and who have vested interests. Indeed, many are the same ones that often pretend that they are supporting ordinary people or the poor rural communities while they also amass millions in rents and other business ventures. That might be one reason, but I also believe it's deeper and goes to the very nature and the foundation of this state. The obsession with property rights lies at the heart of the nature of our elite and privilege in this country. Since the state's foundation, the elite and their public representatives in Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael were different from other elites in other nations, they did not get their wealth and their privilege from manufacturing or from industry by and large. Their biggest source of wealth for the Irish elite has always been property. And I think the fetish around property rights stems from that fact, from the material base that property and the wealth generated from property has played. And those days must end. And I think change is coming and it's clear that Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael are being dragged into that. But I think if we are to address the nature and the causes of the housing crisis, we're going to need to push hard over the next few years. We're going to need a mass movement to tell the landlord parties that the days of their rule are coming to an end and people will not put up with a housing system that's built for developers and landlords or a private rental sector that's built for and on behalf of an elite and wealthy, but is there to provide a basic human right in an affordable and secure manner for all people in this country. One last point I would make, that this crisis in rental accommodation, in housing generally, is being used by far-right and fascist parties to spread hatred and division. And we've seen this in the by-election. We've seen material that claims that we have a housing crisis because we're too many immigrants. Not because we have too many greedy landlords and developers and failures of political parties that have failed to address basic human rights. The far-right have been allowed to do this with the cover of the government. The government parties have let them off the hook and have fallen hook, line and sinker into the trap of allowing others being used as an excuse for hatred and division in this country. And no more so can you see that when landlords have been allowed to impose rent creases of up to 8% under the newly discovered loophole as the COVID-19 rent freezes end. So shame on this government. I want to again thank Sinn Féin for putting the bill and oppose any attempt by the government to stop it going forward. So what
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