Taoiseach and opposition clash in debate on rent hikes after latest reforms

By Gráinne Ní Aodha, Press Association

Taoiseach Micheál Martin clashed with the opposition over housing in a personalised, heated debate in the Dáil.

He criticised all opposition parties’ housing policies as “very, very poor”, which prompted eruptions of laughter in the chamber.

Martin said there was a “deliberate” attempt to interrupt him during the debate, and Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy asked Sinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald to withdraw her calling Mr Martin a “sleeveen”.

McDonald had said: “It takes a very particular type of sleeveen to stand in this House and suggest that it is OK for families to face a rent bill of €30,000 a year in Dublin and 27,000 euro a year in Galway, a very special kind of sleeveen politics from Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. Shame on you.”

Ms Murphy asked her to withdraw the name-calling, to which Ms McDonald said “a sleeveen by any other name” and said to the Taoiseach: “Don’t you dare lecture us on the opposition benches.”

Mr Martin said it was “plain stupid to go on about the ‘greatest evictions since the Famine'”, and accused Sinn Féin of “empty rhetoric, no solutions”.

Amid raised voices interrupting in the chamber, Mr Martin accused Sinn Féin of being “empty in terms of policy formation” and said: “The proof of the pudding was in the last election because they didn’t buy your pig in a poke.”

Ms Murphy said both sides of the House were “incapable of respecting one another’s time” and asked for cooperation.

The opposition has criticised the Government after an apparent increase in rent prices as the Government’s new rent reforms came into force in March.

Rents increased nationwide by 4.4 per cent from December to March this year, the largest quarterly increase in rent prices recorded by property website Daft.ie since 2002.

Market rents are a third above their pre-Covid levels and almost 80 per cent higher than 10 years ago, while the availability of rental accommodation has increased compared with three months ago and a year ago, the report found.

The Government announced a swathe of rental reforms last year, which sees tenancies beginning from March 1 of a minimum duration of six years.

A cap on rents in some areas was replaced with a nationwide cap that allows landlords to raise rents beyond the limit, of a maximum of 2 per cent, to match the market rate when a six-year tenancy ends.

Ms McDonald began the Leaders’ Questions slot by saying that the Daft.ie report showed “the consequences of the Fine Gael-Fianna Fail rent hike bill are now laid bare”.

“Taoiseach, I warned you that (the) bill would open the floodgates for massive rent increases, but you refused to listen – in fact, you told me that I was wrong.”

Mr Martin said Ms McDonald’s proposals were absent of a solution bar “ban rent hikes … which will destroy supply”.

“Any international organisation out there analysing the rental market or any property market have said it time and time again: rent controls or the freezing of rents … kills the market in the long term and will keep prices at too high a level.”

Mr Martin accused Sinn Féin of interrupting and claimed Ms McDonald had not “either the manners or the cop on” to listen, which prompted Ms Murphy to ask for respect to be shown on both sides.

Mr Martin said: “Supply ultimately will moderate rent increases and the level of it.”

Sinn Fein housing spokesperson Eoin O Broin replied: “When? Four years? Six Years?”

Ms Murphy said: “Deputy O Broin, do you have special discourse that I’m unaware of? Would you please allow the answer (to the question) your leader has asked.”

Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said that the Daft.ie report showed “renters are paying the price”.

“We told you this would happen, and these measures would undermine renters, and you said it was ‘a ridiculous assertion’.”

Ms Cairns said that Mr Martin’s tenure has seen rent prices, house prices, and homelessness “all going in one direction under your Government, and then you stand up in here and say that our plans would do damage”.

“Time after time, piece of legislation after piece of legislation that come in here, the same thing happens.

“The opposition warn you. We tell you this will bring up rent prices. You do this big ‘How dare you doubt my bona fides’ thing, and then rents go up, and then you come in here and spout out these lines about how the opposition’s plans won’t work – it is not credible.”

Martin said that rents have been “too high for too long” but said that boosting supply was the solution and that this would take time.

He said he had examined the Social Democrats’ housing proposals and said there was “nothing” in their proposals that would boost supply beyond what the Government was offering.

“It’s time now people got real here,” he said.

He was interrupted, to which Ms Murphy said: “This is Leaders’ Questions. If you’re not happy with the leader that you have asking the question, maybe you consider changing that.”

Martin continued to say that Daft.ie only captures asking prices, and said the figures needed to be taken “with some degree of care”.

The Taoiseach accused the Social Democrats' policies on housing of not being credible and “lacking in detail”.

“I genuinely don’t think the Social Democrats’ policies on housing are credible.”

Martin was interrupted again, to which Ms Murphy said: “This is not a back and forth. I suggest, Deputy Hearne, you go away, and you learn the rules of the House.”

Aontu leader Peadar Toibin said that a PAYE worker needs to earn €32,000 to pay the average rent of a two-bed flat.

“Rent in Dublin is now for the rich, and the number of evictions increased by 50 per cent in the first three months last year,” he said.

“Your policies have led to 7,062 evictions in just one quarter. The equivalent to the population of a full Irish town was evicted just in the first quarter of this year, and it has enormous human consequences.”

He asked the Government to invest in infrastructure, to reverse its rental reforms policy and “decrease the number of people coming to Ireland during this crisis”.

As the Taoiseach began to speak, someone in the chamber began to interrupt to which Ms Murphy said: “Don’t dare”.

He said boosting supply was a key part to tackling the housing crisis and said the Government had invested in Eirgrid and Irish Water to “accelerate infrastructural development”.

Martin said that the Land Development agency has up to €10 billion in capital, and the rental tax credit was introduced to ease the pressure on renters.

And he declared, “This is a multifaceted approach to housing. We are focusing and prioritising it. We’re not interested in slogans, we’re not interested in sort of cheap politics. We are interested in a proper analysis of both the housing market and what it would take to get volume of supply into the future.”