‘A total shambles’ – renters will be the losers due to market reforms, Dáil told

TDs are this afternoon debating the Government’s laws to designate the entire country a Rent Pressure Zone (RPZ), which will bring in rent caps to all properties.

This will cap rent increases per year at 2pc or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower.

Most opposition parties are supporting the laws, having called previously for the entire country to be designated an RPZ, but they also are putting forward their own amendments.

Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said “renters will be the losers” as a result of the changes.

He said the plans were “total shambles”, “haphazard” and “back of the envelope”.

“You’re going to make things worse in the short term,” he told the Dáil.

He predicted there would be higher rents and no guarantee of increased supply.

Mr Ó Broin said the “best case scenario”, which is aimed at driving fund investment in apartments for rent, would “modest levels” of investments from abroad.

His party colleague, Louise O’Reilly, told the Dáil how her father had attended the housing protest outside of Leinster House yesterday. She said he campaigned 56 years ago for better housing and that he had thought he would not have to still be doing so, five decades later.

Labour TD Conor Sheehan said the announcement of the rent reform plans was “nothing short of shambolic”.

“What was proposed last week nearly caused a run on the rental market,” he said.

He said it “really shows how weak” the Government was.

Social Democrat TD Rory Hearne said the housing market didn’t operate like any other market and it shouldn’t be treated like it did.

“It’s delusional thinking, it’s market-like thinking that doesn’t apply,” Mr Hearne told the Dáil.

He said people “need a home and people will pay whatever they can” to get one.

“Relying on institutional investors to provide a key source of housing is absolutely a wrong measure.”

Housing minister James Browne accused the Opposition of deliberately sowing confusion on the new rental controls.

He also complained about the "personalisation of politics" and of other parties whipping up public anger. They were the tactics of the Far Right, he claimed.

The minister told the Opposition they would find out a truth if they ever got into power: "You mislead people, you burn."

Mr Browne claimed other parties knew that a Bill could not be tabled until approved by Government, and had highlighted its non-appearance on the schedule to suggest it was only now being rushed.

"The deliberate misrepresentation of the rules of this House is a very dangerous precedent to be setting," Mr Browne said.

"All the deliberate confusion by the opposite side is not good. You can have your opinion, but facts are facts," he said, adding that the memo for "one national rent control" went to Government last week.

"What the Opposition are trying to do, in a really dishonest way, is to deliberately create confusion and to whip up false anger among people.

"It's to whip up anger among people for purely political ends, putting politics before people," Mr Browne said.

"It is such a dishonest way to approach things."

Mr Browne instead suggested that the Government was "doubling down on the protection of renters" and adding in the additional protections.

Threshold had welcomed the move, as had the Simon community in a cautious way, he said.

But from the Opposition, "we've heard lots of personalisation of politics, lots of criticisms, and lots of clichés. We've heard no solutions," he said.

The Government could have instantly stimulated house building in Ireland with a zero rating for VAT for a limited period which would wipe €50,000 off the price of a house at a stroke, said Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín.

It would immediately increase activity and supply, whereas the Government was failing in many other areas, he said.

He gave the example of Uisce Eireann saying it would not be able to address water blackspots before 2050, and builders reporting that it was taking a year to get planning permission.

There were 160,000 vacant homes in the country, yet refurbishment grants were "taking forever."

Instead, Mr Tóibín said, the Government's rent moves were encouraging unscrupulous landlords to hike prices and profiteer.

"There's no doubt that some profit-motivated landlords will actually look to put pressure on tenants, to push them out, so that they can increase rents," he said.

"There are good landlords and bad landlords, along with good tenants and bad. But your particular law here will incentivise the bad landlords to profiteer."

Government incompetence had crystallised in the last ten days, he said. "There's been confusion, chaos, and contradiction."

The story about changes in the Rent Pressure Zones broke before the Cabinet had even discussed the issue, he said.

Then the Government had "chopped and changed" its plans on a daily basis.

Landlords listening to the confusion had concluded that they can "evict their tenants now," before the ban on no-fault evictions next March, he said.

Property owners believe the "can rack up the rents before that happens" and significantly increase their levels of profit.

"I have no doubt that the statistics will even show that landlords actually started to move in that direction last week because of the Government's plan," Mr Tóibín said.

"It really feels that this is Amateur Hour."

Junior housing minister Christopher O’Sullivan said the Government was bringing forward the laws quickly “because renters need protection”.

He said linking rents to inflation would be “an immediate and concrete protection against high rent inflation”.

“We want to provide certainty, clarity and stability for the rental sector. The new policy measures announced last week to apply from March 1 will boost supply of homes.”

He said laws would be brought forward later this year to give effect to the changes kicking in from March 1, which would include removing the 2pc rent cap from newly built apartments.

New tenancies created after this date will be able to be set at “market value” but will have “far greater” protections for renters.