Conor Sheehan: Evictions Surge - 7,000 Notices, 5,604 Kids

Deputy Chair. Thank you. Las Ciann Comhairle. Certainty, clarity and stability for the rental sector, Tánaiste. Those were the words of the Minister for Housing when he introduced his disastrous rental reform bill in February. He didn't mention the word eviction once, but as predicted, this new law has caused carnage in the private rental sector. Not stability, just chaos. Over 7,000 notices of termination in the first three months of the year, a 51% increase on the year before, the highest level of evictions ever recorded. Record and ever-growing levels of homelessness, 5,604 children now officially homeless. A terrible record and the new normal and it never gets the media coverage or outrage that it should. And whether they are from Ireland or not, it is irrelevant. It is a child without a home. This week, Tánaiste, you had a go at local authorities, but the problems they have is the lack of powers to act, whether on dereliction or homelessness. Labour has long campaigned with Focus Ireland to require local authorities to take the best interests of the child into account when working with families who present as homeless. But the government has failed to act on this legislation for nearly a decade. There are many things we can do to address evictions and homelessness. We all know we need more supply, but your government has been saying that for a decade and the problem keeps getting worse. The Oireachtas Housing Committee has today published an important report on homelessness. It includes 14 recommendations, all suggestions that those of us in opposition have previously called for in some form or another. We know preventing homelessness is the best use of resources. It keeps people in their existing home and it is much more cost effective. The chair of the committee, Deputy Carragher, was correct on Morning Ireland when he said that no child should have to spend any period of time in homelessness. This committee, which has a government majority, has called for a child homelessness strategy, an emergency package of measures to reduce homelessness and, critically, is open to an emergency ban on no-fault evictions for a defined period of time. Tánaiste, we have the highest level of evictions since the famine and your government has the power to do something about it. Will you stand up for the thousands of children without a home? There is a government housing bill going through the Dáil right now. Committee stage is resuming today at 12.30. You can introduce a ban on no-fault evictions to it. You can stem the tide of rising homelessness and you can protect the best interests of the child. Tánaiste, I am asking you for a straight answer. If you won't ban evictions, what will you do now, before the summer recess, to reduce homelessness? I agree with a variety of things you said, but something I fundamentally disagree with is the Bologna spin coming from some local authority officials in relation to dereliction. We represent a county, a city, that has a very excellent record when it comes to tackling dereliction. Last time I checked, this country has one national set of laws. I am not buying into this idea that all local authorities are performing equally well when it is just simply untrue. Eleven of them did not bother collecting a cent. I can find more derelict properties in County Wicklow on my nightly walk than the entire local authority can find in the course of a year. We have to take this deadly seriously and speak with one voice as an Oireachtas, that when we say dereliction is a scourge, when we put in place a whole variety of ranges to help people fix it, whether it is the Living City Initiative, whether it is the Cricona with its vacancy grants, all of this sort of CPO powers, some local authorities are doing a bloody great job and we thank them for that, and some are not treating this like an emergency. It is as simple as, and no-one is going to change my mind on this, but what we are going to do is change the law, because they can't be trusted or depended on to deliver on this, so we are going to bring in, through the revenue commissioners, the powers to rectify this. I know this, by the way, from my own councillors. They are telling me they are raising it week in, week out at council meetings across the country as well. Councillors are frustrated on this too. So dereliction is a scourge. Everybody needs to take it much more seriously, including local authorities. Some are doing great, like Limerick, some aren't doing well at all in relation to this, and it is not on. In relation to the best interests of the child, I agree with you on this, so does the Government, and we are going to amend the 1988 Housing Act in relation to that, so that it will be very clear that in the decision-making process on accommodation for households that the best interests of the child is included, and I also agree with you and the Committee in relation to the Child and Family Homelessness Prevention Plan. It is committed for, as you know, in the Government's National Housing Plan. It will be published before the summer recess. I will make sure that some of the points that have been made in that Committee report, if not already encompassed, are given further consideration, because I think it is a really important area that we all want to make progress on across party as well. I would just make the point in relation to the no-fault eviction ban. We did make changes in March in relation to new tenancies and a no-fault eviction ban, except for some small landlords. That was an attempt to get the balance right between increasing renters' protections in our country, increasing tenants' protections, and also increasing supply. We also expanded the RPZs, and these were practical measures, and we brought in the six-year tenancies as well. Next week, you will see rural planning guidelines to help make it easier for people to build in their community. The Budget will see dereliction taxation to help tackle dereliction. This week, you saw the housing activation funding to try and get housing going. Every day, we are taking more measures together to try and make a real difference, but we have seen in the past where a blanket no-fault eviction ban did actually see a very significant spike in notices to quit when it was lifted. So, I think we need to be careful. I think that is why the wording of the report is quite careful in asking that we keep these matters under review. Thank you, Sian. Thank you. Last question. The fact that you said that local authorities can't be trusted or depended on is, frankly, an outrageous statement, in my view, because it is the centralisation of power in the Custom House that has weakened the ability of councils to build new homes or to prioritise children in homelessness and to tackle dereliction. And the fact of the matter is, the measures that you spoke of in terms of security of tenure are completely undermined by the market rent reset mechanism that is baked into the legislation that allows landlords to reset rent to the market rate in between tenancies, exposing renters, who are the most vulnerable people in housing in this country, to absolute record double-digit rent increases. So, once again, Tánaiste, your own backbenchers are talking about the need for a ban on evictions. And I want to ask you, what emergency measures will you take before the summer recess? And why won't you recognise that only a ban on evictions will actually reduce homelessness? Thank you, Deputy. Tánaiste? I'm really confused with your position on dereliction, because you're defending the system rather than the people the system is meant to represent. People are being let down by inactivity on the derelict sites levy. And I gave you an open goal, and I said your own council is doing a really great job. Limerick is one of the best. Limerick has no superpowers that the rest of the country doesn't have, right? You might, maybe on the GA pitch, but you've no more superpowers than the rest of the country, yet there's 11 local authorities that didn't collect anything, Deputy. 11. It's not good enough. It is not good enough. If you can come into this house and kick me around this house in the need for the government to do more on housing, fine. Government has a major role to play in relation to housing. So does local government. And I think it is unacceptable, unacceptable, that there's more than 26 million that could have been collected that hasn't been collected. And we saw through RT Investigate's excellent journalism, bizarre baloney in terms of excuses as to why this hadn't been taken more seriously. And I'm not commentating on this, I'm acting. And that's why this week I brought forward proposals to bring in a derelict sites tax, because if they're not going to take it seriously, we're going to take it seriously. But you're defending the system here. The system's letting young people down. This is a table, it's available, look at the local authorities that didn't collect any money and didn't think there was any dereliction in their own county. It's not good enough. The government isn't living by arbitrary deadlines of what more are you going to do by this date or that date. Every day, every day we come to work, we're taking more concrete actions to help tackle homelessness. This week was the housing activation funding right across the country, including into your own county. And the Child and Family Homelessness Action Plan is the next major step we'll take before the summer meets.