I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, and the officials from his Department. They are very welcome.

Amendments Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive, are related and may be discussed together by agreement.

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 5, to delete lines 30 and 31, and in page 6, to delete lines 1 and 2 and substitute the following:

“(2) Within three months of the passing of this Act the Minister shall lay before the Houses of the Oireachtas a report setting out the impact of the “market rent reset” provision contained in section 8 on rental inflation in the private rental sector.”.

I have genuine concerns about this Bill, where it is going and what it will do for renters in this country. I am already concerned about affordability. Rents are very high all over the country.

That is particularly the case in urban areas but elsewhere as well. It seems that no impact study was done on this Bill before it was produced as to what it was going to do to rents. The way I see it is that rents are only going to go one way. Many landlords in my constituency are small landlords. They might have a number of properties and most of them are generally fair. They might get a nice family in to rent and want to keep that family there, so they may not have increased the rent in some years. Suddenly this legislation comes in and it is going to change how things are done and the rent can only be raised for new tenancies every six years. If the tenants move out for whatever reason, and new tenants are moving in after 1 March, naturally they will raise the rent because they will not be able to raise it for another six years and may not have raised it for quite some time before that. I know many landlords in those circumstances. One landlord told me he has a number of properties. He was only charging €800 euro to a family for his property, whereas one neighbour was charging €1,500 and another was charging €1,600 for the same size house. He had not raised his rent. He was not that type of person. He said he was not greedy and he was not trying to profiteer off ordinary people because he did not think it was fair. However, he will obviously take the opportunity to raise it, maybe not as high as his neighbours, but to some extent. Many landlords will raise the rent to what we call market value when they get the opportunity.

Looking at the figures from the Residential Tenancies Board for the average rent in each county, we know some places have lower rents and many places are much higher. The figures also show an average market rent. Going on those figures, it is possible that people may end up paying up to €3,500 extra a year in the first year and for subsequent years in a new tenancy in my county of Cavan. I do not know where they will get the money. I am hearing from families whose landlords are selling up because this legislation is so confusing and have issued eviction notices to people. Up to this, they had been charging them a reasonably fair rent. People come into my office and ask me where they are going to find a rental they can afford. They are looking but they cannot find anything because there is very little availability and what is available is very expensive. Many of these people are above the HAP rates and above the social housing threshold. They have to go on the private rental market without any sort of financial support and they cannot find anywhere to rent. Do they go into homeless accommodation or do they try to bunk in with family, squashed into one bedroom? It is an absolute nightmare for them. As I said, this legislation is not well thought out whatsoever. It will have an extreme impact on rent in the private rental sector.

On students, I am about to see my son go off to college, I hope, in September. He will be looking for rented accommodation and we know there is very little student-specific accommodation or on-campus accommodation. If he is lucky enough to get that - and it is not cheap either - that would be great but if not he will be depending on the private rental market. It is a new tenancy every year because most students seek a nine-month tenancy. They move into the house at whatever the rent is and then they move out. Then they have to get another new tenancy for the following year. The rent will be raised again and again. I do not know how I will afford that if that is what happens next year and I know many other families will be in exactly the same position. This Bill will only drive homelessness higher because already we are talking about in excess of 16,000 people, of whom 5,000 are children. That is not even counting the people I have already spoken about who are bunking in the family box room or lying on the sofa of their friend's house or in domestic violence shelters or lying on the street. There are a lot more homeless than we actually see in those figures that are accessing emergency accommodation. Again, that figure will only rise because more and more people are going to be out on the street because they cannot afford the rent as it is and this Bill will drive rents up. We should have had proper analysis of any sort of legislation like this on what it will do to the rental market. We need regular monitoring and reporting of this Bill as we go forward.

I would like to welcome members of the Drumshanbo men's shed, who are guests of the Minister of State, Deputy Frank Feighan, and also members from south Down men's shed, who are guests of Senator Conor Murphy. You are very welcome here this evening. I hope you enjoy your visit to Leinster House.

I thank the Minister of State for being here. It was the Minister, Deputy Browne, who was here last week when we were on Second Stage of the legislation, so I will repeat some of the concerns about this Bill. It will be no surprise to the Minister of State that many in the Opposition do not support this Bill and do not see any evidence of how it is going to work. There is no evidence that it will bring down rents and that is why we are referring to it as the rent hike Bill, because in fact everything points to the fact that it going to increase rents which are already incredibly high. A series of amendments from me and other Social Democrats, Labour Party, Green Party and Sinn Féin Senators are all an attempt to make this Bill a little bit better. The Minister of State will probably not accept any of those amendments. That is what we saw play out in the Dáil last week, but the fact of the matter is this Bill cannot be made very much better, even with the small mitigations we are attempting. I stand to support this particular amendment, which is really just trying to bring a bit of evidence and actual analysis to what has been an incredibly rushed process. There was a minority report at the housing committee which laid out very clearly deep concerns about this Bill and what it will mean in terms of making rent incredibly unaffordable. I wish that the Minister of State will at least consider this idea of bringing some evidence and analysis so that we could come back to this. I suspect the answer is going to be "No". If we want to talk about evidence-based policy, we should be looking at reports and analysis so that we can assess the impact of the policy we are making on the lives of people who are going to be affected.

I will keep it to the amendments we are discussing at the moment. We do not agree with this legislation. We do not agree with something that will bring up the price of rent for people who are already to the pin of their collar. When we discussed this legislation at the housing committee, even when we had the experts in, a large number of typos had to be corrected. It was described as the most confusing legislation to have come before us. There are so many different categories of rent for so many different people. If the experts cannot understand it, how are we supposed to understand it and how is the regular renter out there supposed to understand it? I hear an awful lot about the security of tenure and that people will have security of tenure for six years, but I just cannot get my head around how that will work when people just cannot afford the rent. The facts are there that normal tenancies are only lasting three and a half years, so it will be reset every time someone moves out and really this six years provision does not matter a damn. I am bearing in mind that the Government has the majority and the Bill will get pushed through but our amendments are just asking for reports. I really cannot understand how it would not be acceptable. Amendment No. 1 states:

Within three months of passing of this Act, the Minister shall lay before the Houses of the Oireachtas a report setting out the impact of the "market rent reset provision" contained in section 8 on rental inflation in the private rental sector.

I cannot understand what would be wrong with agreeing to show us a review of this. Amendment No. 2 states:

Within three months of the passing of this Act the Minister shall lay before the Houses of the Oireachtas a report setting out the impact of this Act on rental inflation for student renters in both the private and rental sector and the Student Specific Accommodation sector.

We are just asking for reports. We feel that this is being pushed through and we are listening to people on the ground telling us the impact it is going to have. We just want to make sure that there are options for this to be reviewed, for reports to be generated and for us to be able to discuss the impact this is having on people. For people in Laois, rents are possibly going to go up by €3,100 a year. We know that people absolutely cannot afford it. Anyone going to third-level education has to leave the county. For 90% of the time students are not getting a six-year secure tenancy. We know how much these young people are going to suffer. We know how many of them need to emigrate because they cannot afford to rent or buy a house here. We are simply asking that there would be some review mechanism for the damage this is doing because big landlords benefiting from this will not sit well with the general public.

We have seen all of the rent organisations come out against this Bill and tell us how concerned they are. We have seen the Simon Communities in Ireland come out and tell us of the detrimental impact this will have. We know the homeless figures are going up and up. They say the higher the rents are, the more impact they will have, with more homelessness and more women and children in homeless hubs. We do not have enough facilities for them. We do not have enough social and affordable homes. We know there are better options. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin has brought forward lots of detailed plans, including 114 pages of a housing plan that details and sets out ways to improve the housing crisis.

It was said in this Chamber last week that Sinn Féin does not have ideas. There are lots and lots of ideas being put forward by the Opposition and every time they are put forward they are just put back. Even when we have simple amendments just asking for collaboration to please generate a simple report to share with the public on the impact this will have on the rental market, even that cannot even be accepted. I do not know; I am running out of words. I understand this is not the Minister of State's brief but I hope he can give me some kind of a clear answer as to why the hell a report could not be generated and why those amendments could not be accepted. We could have come in with many more amendments.

People in County Laois will suffer much more from rent reset to market values. We do not pay anything near the market value in a lot of cases because we do not have a lot of apartment blocks. We have a lot of rentals in the second hand sector. A tenant may be paying an historical rent of €900 but from 1 March, that rent will just shoot through the roof. Those people are really worried. I cannot keep up with the demand and the number of calls coming into my office and I do not know what to say to them. The rent will go up and there is the food poverty. I attended a meeting of the social protection committee this morning and listened to statements from MABS and the Citizens Information Board. There is poverty and increasing numbers of people are coming in to them with cost-of-living and energy poverty queries. There are millions. They do not know what to do. This is having an impact and 20% of their overall calls are from people who are distressed. I asked what was the main reason people are distressed and they replied it was due to the cost of living. People are terrified.

I hope we can get some answers because they are watching. They are looking to see leadership here and for some kind of answers that will speak to the real people, the people who cannot afford to heat their houses or pay their rent or electricity bills. An electrician rang me when I was on my way here this morning and told me that the roll of wire with which he is going to wire houses - it might take him 40 rolls of this wire to wire a house - used to cost €120 but now costs €240. We are dealing with levels of inflation. This does not relate directly to housing but everybody is absolutely stretched. I would love for there to be a way this Bill could be paused and that we could go back to the drawing board and think about the impact it is having. I acknowledge that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael want to make a difference and help renters and I do not stand in this Chamber and give out for no reason but I have been listening day after day to people telling me about the fear they have about this and I am really worried. I have no answers for them except to say I am sorry but they are being thrown under the bus with this legislation because I cannot say that their rent is not going to go up. Someone who is struggling really cannot afford that extra €1,000, €2,000, €3,000 or €4,000.

I thank the Senators for their contributions. I get that the crux of the amendment is to seek a report within three months but, as the amendment is presented here today, that is simply impossible because what the amendment does is delete the lines within the legislation that enable me to move the provisions of the Bill, yet at the same time the Senators are asking us to produce a report within three months. It does not make any sense. It cannot happen. The amendment proposes to delete the lines that would allow me to move the provisions of a Bill but within the same amendment it is suggested that a report be produced within three months. It is contradictory and I am surprised that it was not ruled out of order for that reason because there is a complete contradiction within the amendment.

Speaking of reports, Dáil Éireann Standing Order 204 provides that within:

Twelve months following the enactment of a Bill, save in the case of the Finance Bill and the Appropriation Bill, the member of the Government or Minister of State who is officially responsible for implementation of the Act shall provide a report which shall review the functioning of the Act and which shall be laid in the Parliamentary Library.

Irrespective of this requirement, the proposed amendments to require various reviews after just three months of operation simply do not afford enough time as a basis for any meaningful review of the significant changes being introduced in the Bill. The changes apply to first-time tenancies created on or after 1 March 2026. In the student-specific accommodation, as was referenced by some of the Senators, it will be 1 March 2029 before existing stock can be reset to rents beyond the rent increase restriction. A much longer review period would be required to measure the impacts of these changes in the rental sector generally and in student-specific accommodation.

Considerable time has been spent on report writing and recommendation making to inform these policy measures. I believe there has sufficient analysis of the rental market over the past two years, in particular, and this Bill is the outcome of that process. I, my Department and the RTB will continue to keep the operation of the residential rental sector and the Residential Tenancies Act, as amended, under constant review with a view to making any necessary legal changes in a timely manner. The legislation is always under review. The legislation can be amended. As our approach to housing policy is flexible and often open to amendments and changes, this legislation will be kept under constant review with a report required within 12 months anyway.

I think the Senators will agree that this Government and the previous Governments have not delayed in making necessary, justifiable changes. Equally, the Government wants to provide certainty, clarity and stability for the rental sector and that is key. Any potential review after three months would take away any of that certainty or stability. These measures have been informed by the finding of the Housing Agency's review of RPZs, its potential policy option for rent controls and the agency's preferred recommendation to modify the existing operation of the current rent controls. Their view involved having extensive stakeholder engagement and a comprehensive examination of the current RPZ system that showed that the existing rules are restricting supply and need to change. The work and recommendations of the Housing Commission have also been taken into account. The approved policy measures aim to boost investment in the supply of homes available for rent and strengthen tenancy protections. Delivering on these policy measures is now a priority for the Government.

I will speak to some of the comments that have been made. Almost all Senators referenced availability and the lack of it, of rental accommodation in particular, and that is the exact tenet of this Bill, namely,to try to increase supply and the supply of apartments in particular. There is a chronic shortage of apartments to lease or rent and that is exactly what this Bill is trying to do. Whether we like it or not, we will require some element of the private sector for the delivery of homes. Some people do not like to hear that and will not accept that but that is a fact if we are to increase supply and delivery of apartments. So far, the reaction of industry to these measures has been good.

Also, many Senators referenced the anxiety or fear tenants have about being served with notices of termination. Again, what this legislation aims to do is extend the security of tenure; to extend the security of the tenancy to six years. That is unprecedented and it is essentially rolling. The Bill tries to strike that balance. For the past number of years when I was in here, the Housing Agency was referenced and the question of why we were not listening to the Housing Agency and the Housing Commission was asked a number of times but we have done so.

What they have asked us to do is strike a balance between ensuring that landlords remain in the market for rental accommodation and increasing the supply of apartments and securing the protection of tenants. That is what we have done, especially by expanding the RPZs nationally. That never happened before. I often use the example of my hometown of Clonakilty, which was not in an RPZ. It was not offered the protection that RPZs offer to tenants, and now it is. We also have to think of those people who are renting outside RPZs. There was reference to homelessness numbers. That is exactly what the Bill is trying to deal with. It is trying to increase supply in order that, once and for all, we can see the homelessness figures go in the opposite direction to the one in which they are going at present.

There was reference to the fact there is no evidence it would work. As already stated, the response of the industry so far has been quite positive. We expect to see an increase in the supply of apartments in particular. This legislation has been described as confusing, but I would describe the amendment as very confusing. As stated, it would delete the lines that allow me to move the provisions in the Bill but asks for a report at the same time. I do not see how that could work.

This legislation is aimed at supply. I have said it before that all of us have people coming to our clinics and offices who are desperately seeking rental accommodation. They all refer to the fact that they have been on daft.ie and other platforms that offer places to rent but that those places are not there. We are trying to fix this by increasing supply. The legislation will do that. We cannot accept the amendment for the reasons I have outlined.

I will make a criticism of the Bill. It is political criticism, and I ask the Minister State not to take it personally. I know the officials have put in a huge amount of hard work. Because the legislation is being rushed through the Dáil and Seanad, renters and the public are not being allowed to examine it and have a good long look at the ins and outs of it in any detail. This is being rushed through. It is the most profound change to the regulations of the private rental sector in a decade.

The centrepiece of the Bill is the market reset proposal. This allows landlords to reset the rent to the market rate between tenancies. At present, a landlord can only increase rent by 2% to account for inflation. This change has been made at the behest of the big institutional investors to increase their profits. The reality is that Irish Institutional Property, IIP, which, it is fair to say, represents the big companies, the vulture funds and the big developers, has brought this about. It has open access here, and I see its chairman, Pat Farrell, coming in and out. He has access to Leinster House. He and IIP have been pushing this proposal. It cannot be right that the head of one of these big institutional organisations has such open access to Government. Whether Ministers meet him, I do not know. However, it should be declared and should be made clear whether they do. What engagement has Mr. Farrell had with Ministers, backbench TDs and Senators? It is not healthy for society. Clearly, the Bill is something they want. They wanted this. As was said by Lorcan Sirr recently-----

I ask Senator Andrews to be careful mentioning names because the people involved are not here.

It is on the record.

It is on the public record. The Government has been taken hostage by companies and organisations such as this, and they are ensuring that this legislation is put through. Lorcan Sirr said the Government is trying to convince people that it will bring down rents by allowing landlords to put up rents. That is the reality.

I look at the glass bottle site in Ringsend where 3,500 or, possibly, 3,800 new homes are to be developed. The only people who will be able to buy or rent them are the really wealthy and really high earners. I went to the glass bottle site and had a look. Those involved with the site kindly showed me around. The rent will be €2,500 a month for a one-bedroom flat. There are people who have lived in Ringsend all their lives. When it was not popular to live there, they made Ringsend the great community it is. What has happened? The Government is facilitating developers to come in and is allowing these units to be built, and the cost of them is absolutely insane. Very few people in Ringsend will be able to afford to rent of these one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. A household would need to have two Senators' salaries in order to be able to afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment at the glass bottle site. This is having a huge impact. Where will people go? They have to leave their communities. They have to move or they are living in overcrowded conditions on Pearse Street and Kevin Street or in Ringsend because they cannot rent properties. They cannot afford to buy or rent.

Not too far from here, 500 m away, there is a five- or six-storey building where a one-bedroom apartment costs €2,700 a month. How can anybody pay that? Beside that building is St. Andrew's Court, which the Government has been promising to regenerate, rejuvenate and redevelop for nearly ten years. It is still lying vacant in the middle of a housing crisis. Across the road from is the building to which I refer in which a one-bedroom apartment costs €2,500 or €2,700. It costs even more to rent a two-bedroom apartment there. That is what is happening in Ireland. There are the wealthy and there are the forgotten. Families in the inner city are being forgotten and pushed out because of policies such as those outlined in this rental Bill.

How will families from Ringsend or Pearse Street ever be able to find homes? They have experienced decades of underinvestment in their communities. The community to which I refer has been there a long time. Before it was popular, they were there with the football clubs and the bingo. The latter is still being organised. During Covid, many of the families who live in the community were working on the front line. There were working in hospitals, they were in these Houses cleaning, they were working in Tesco and they were delivering essential supplies. None of these families will be able to afford to buy in their own communities. They cannot pay €2,700 rent. That is what is happening. The Government has just forgotten ordinary working-class communities in the inner city.

It is not only in Dublin. It is in Limerick, Galway and Cork. Inner-city working-class communities have been forgotten and this Bill shows that and highlights how forgotten they are.

As I say, rents will go up and up. The Government will talk about protection for renters. That is all very well but protection is only good if you can afford the rent and they will not be able to afford the rent. Sandymount is an affluent area. People would assume that it is a very wealthy area but young people cannot afford the rent. The average price of houses in Dublin was in the news today, with the headline, "Cost of buying a home in Dublin reaches €500,000". That is not according to Sinn Féin, but the CSO. An article states:

The ... cost of buying a home in Dublin has now reached €500,000, according to the Central Statistics Office. Residential property prices rose by 7% nationally last year. It marks a slight deceleration compared to 2024, when the cost of buying a home rose by 8.7%.

I suppose the Government will probably put out a press release stating that prices are not going up as fast as they were and looking for a clap on the back. The article continued:

Residential property is now 178.8% above its low point in early 2013 after the financial crash. Prices are now 25% above their highest level at the peak of the property boom in April 2007.

[...]

Nationally, the median price of buying a home was €387,000 last year. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown in Dublin was the most expensive area at €680,000.

On those sort of eye-watering figures for homes, most people will know where Sandymount is. It is not too far away. Walk for a kilometre from here and you will be in Sandymount. People and their children in Sandymount are expected to pay €680,000 for a home in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, such as in Blackrock. It is insane. The option is to stay at home because they cannot go out and afford to live in one of the overpriced rental units on the glass bottle site.

According to the article, "Outside the capital, the most expensive region was Wicklow with a price of €454,000. The second most expensive was Kildare at €440,000", and "The least expensive was Donegal, where the price was €195,000." The way things are going, people from the inner city will only be able to afford to live in Donegal because they cannot afford to live in Ringsend, Sandymount, Pearse Street and Kevin Street. Even now, there is a site on Kevin Street. It was bought for some eye-watering multimillion euro sum. They were to develop it and build offices and apartments. They could not afford the financial model that they had paid out that money for and it is now derelict. It has been derelict for nearly two years. At the same time, across the road, on Bishop Street, in the Iveagh Trust buildings, they are expected to live in absolutely shocking conditions. There is dampness and mould in the tiny flats. You would not be allowed construct them these days, although, having looked at the Irish Glass Bottle, IGB, site, the one-bedroom apartments there are not far off them, but that is another story.

When you look at the conditions in the Iveagh Trust, there are so many boarded-up flats. In the middle of a housing crisis, they are empty. It seems insane that people are expected to pay these massive bills. They are expected to pay eye-watering amounts in rent, such as €2,500 for a one-bedroom flat or apartment on the glass bottle site. I am not sure what the difference between an apartment and a flat is. They are both very expensive but a flat, in general, in the Dublin City Council area tends to be neglected and under invested in.

On the Government investment, Pearse House residents put in a request because there was a regeneration plan. They got phase 2 of the regeneration plan in Pearse House. Residents were really looking forward to it. They have lived in shocking conditions for many years. They asked the Minister to meet them because the Minister had pulled the regeneration and said they were going to deep retrofit Pearse House. They have put in multiple requests to meet the Minister for housing and he has ignored them.

The Minister, Deputy Browne, is not here. We are discussing amendments Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive.

The Minister of State, Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan, might pass that message on. I would appreciate that. It is unfair on the residents that the Minister refuses to meet them.

We undertook analysis of the average cost of this market reset which the Government talks about. It will be almost a €3,000 increase reset in the first year. For instance, existing tenancies in Carlow town currently pay €1,050 a month rent. When this Bill comes into being, a new tenancy, which is a proxy for market rents, will be €1,355. Over a year, this total increase will be €3,660. In Cavan, in Senator Tully's constituency, the existing market rent is €963 and over 12 months there will be a total increase to €3,108. That is significant. In Cork, it is currently €1,238 and it will go up to €3,696. In Cork city, it will go up to €3,336. In Dublin, currently it is €1,937 for an existing tenancy and that will go up to €3,516. Galway will be the most affected area. Monthly rent in Galway city is currently €1,409 a month and it will go up to €5,292. That is absolutely insane. In Limerick, Senator Collins's constituency, it is currently €849 and it will increase to €3,156 after that. I cannot see Laois there.

Laois is there.

Laois is there. It is currently €1,047 and this will be €3,132-----

Increased over the year, yes.

-----increased over the year. You are picking people's pockets. People cannot afford the cost of living as it is and now they will be expected to pay significant sums, depending on where they live in the country. For me and the people whom I represent and meet every day, that is how Ireland works now.

It is one law for the wealthy and one law for inner city communities. Irish Institutional Property has free access to Leinster House, but somebody living in Pearse House, Ringsend or Kevin Street does not have that access, connection and past with the Minister for housing, other Ministers, Deputies and Senators. That is a real concern.

Rents are already too high. As I said, we are in the middle of a housing and cost-of-living crisis. People are struggling to meet their weekly and daily costs. The budget last November left people with disabilities in difficulty. Where will they get money to pay rent? They will be down €400 and have been left short again.

Government policy should be focused on cutting and freezing rents, not allowing them to rise even further. As I said, Lorcan Sirr, who is not a Sinn Féin representative but, rather, an independent analyst who has studied housing and housing economics for many years, said the Government is now trying to tell people that it will reduce rents by allowing landlords to increase rents. I mentioned that earlier. That stuck with me. It is difficult to understand.

Market rent means whatever rent the market is charging at a point in time. The average length of a private tenancy is three and a half years, according to the RTB. The RTB has its challenges. This is not directly related to the Bill, but public housing, including flat complexes, should be allowed to come under the auspices of the RTB because the neglect in the flats is absolutely shocking. People have nowhere to go but to the council, which will ignore them. Dublin City Council tenants and local authority tenants across the country should be allowed to go to the RTB to get some redress because local authorities do not respond to council tenants. They brush them off.

Some 25% of all tenancies registered in 2025 were first-time tenancies. If these trends continue, within four to six years, the vast majority of private renters will be caught by the market reset rule. The Minister might address that. Young people do not want to live at home for the rest of their lives. They want to get out and rent until they can save and buy a house. The current housing system is so broken that that is not achievable unless they win the lotto or get an amazing job that pays huge sums of money. Young people do not want to live at home. Children in Sandymount are mainly living in homes owned by the well-off, but they do not want to live at home forever. Just because their parents have a nice large house does not mean their child can afford one. They have to go out and rent, but cannot do so because of the failure of the Government to address the housing crisis.

I hope I am not boring Senator Flaherty.

Not unduly.

Where do young people go? They are living at home in their 20s and want to get out, live independently and move on with their lives. What are they going to do? They have to stay at home. They cannot go out and rent. They are expected to rent. This will lead to homelessness because there are relationship breakdowns. Senator McCarthy is on the front line of dealing with homelessness and addiction issues. He has done amazing work to support people who find themselves in homelessness. Senator McCarthy and organisations like the one with which he is involved are picking up the tab for the failure of the Government to address the housing crisis. I will leave it at that. I have made a few points on which I ask the Minister of State to come back to me.

Obviously, supply is important and I do not think any of us are saying it is not. The level of housing being built does not match the increase in population over the past several decades. The problem is that we have over-relied on the private sector. The private sector is important. The Social Democrats are not saying there is no role for the private sector to play in this space. When it comes to supply, it has to be more nuanced than just supply, supply, supply. We have to look at affordability.

We have no evidence. Can the Minister of State tell us if he expects rents to come down in the next six, 12 or 18 months? If he is claiming rents will come down, which we do not believe, can he point to a period of time when he thinks they will?

The Minister of State spoke about the six-year protections for renters. The reality is that the average rental time span is three and a half years. We would like something like a no-fault eviction ban, which is what would actually give renters protection, rather than the idea of six-year tenancies which does not reflect the reality.

For example, students move around regularly and some face extortionate rents. This includes the challenge of what rent is because many people face additional charges, in particular for private student accommodation. One student told me it is becoming impossible to continuously afford rent and they have had to cut essential groceries each week which, it goes without saying, affects one's dignity. They went on to say that their parents have helped them with accommodation, but have been struggling big time as the rent is now more than the mortgage cost. That family may have multiple children around the same age at university at the same time. They are paying more in rent while still paying off their mortgage. It is excruciating for people.

Last week, the Minister, Deputy Browne, said the Opposition is peddling misery. I wonder whether the Minister of State thinks we are lying or not reflecting the reality of the people who come to us with these concerns and are horrified by the real rent increases that the Bill will bring about. Does the Minister of State think we are peddling misery or reflecting legitimate views from people who are screaming out with concern that this is going to make their lives unaffordable?

I would like to mention something I spoke about last week, when the Minister of State was not here for the debate. Women fleeing domestic violence are told to go and seek new accommodation. They are told to go to a refuge and, it is to be hoped, after that they can find a new place to live and rent. They will not come under the six-year tenant safety protection the Minister of State says the Bill will provide. They will be forced into market rent every single time they flee. That will lead to women staying in violent situations.

I spoke about this in detail last week. That is what the outcome of this legislation will be. Women will choose between fleeing with their children or staying at home because they do not know where to live. They do not know whether they will have emergency accommodation for eight or ten months. There is very little evidence in the Bill on the protection of vulnerable groups, such as those who constantly cycle in and out of rental accommodation.

Senator Andrews spoke about the high levels of rent across the country, but people are screaming out with fear and are terrified that the Bill will make their lives more unaffordable than they already are. It would be great to hear directly from the Minister of State about when he anticipates rents falling. Rents in the many expensive apartment buildings that have been built are totally out of reach for people. The Minister of State knows that we would love to have a State construction company and the Government building housing.

We often hear that Fianna Fáil is the party of home building but we cannot keep dining out on a decades-old story because the reality is we do not have enough homes. Yes, building more accommodation and apartments is a positive thing but not if they are unaffordable and not if they are linked to market rents where the average person simply cannot not afford to live in them.

Before we move on to our next speaker, I welcome to the Public Gallery, Miriam Fletcher, David Murphy, Maureen Murphy, Angela Murphy, Jennifer Murphy, Karen Wilds and Kaye O'Loughlin who are guests of Brigid McGlynn from the Office of the Secretary General. They are most welcome to the House and I hope they enjoy their evening.

I thank the Minister of State for engaging in this debate. Where do we even start with this Bill? We put down sensible amendments in the Dáil from the Labour Party. We are bringing them to the Seanad now as well. I am sure they will not be supported by the Government. We have called for this legislation to be scrapped. We simply do not believe that it supports renters. We do not believe it will work. It sides with big developers, big landlords and vulture funds over the average small landlord and, certainly, it is not on the side of renters. We know average tenancies end after three and a half years, not six years, so we will know there will be more frequent market resets. The Government has admitted that itself. It brought in a rent credit because it knows renters are struggling. It has already acknowledged that by bringing in a rent credit, which I would argue needs to be increased. Rents are going to go up because of this legislation. The Government seems to be coming up with all different ideas on how to solve the housing crisis but nothing seems to be working. This is another one of those ideas. We had the idea of the housing tsar before; I do not know what that was about.

This is causing a huge amount of confusion for renters and for small landlords. I am a renter myself. I live with my landlord currently and we are both confused by this legislation. We are both very confused as to what is going to happen. The general public is very confused. There needs to be a whole review of renting in Ireland. There is this idea that renting is this transient thing that people do but people have been renting in this country now for decades. People who do not want to be renting are trapped in renting. A lot of people aspire to owning their own properties. It is not everybody but a lot of people aspire to being able to own their own home one day.

We cannot have a whole generation of pensioners renting in the future. I have said it a million times. This is an absolute poverty ticking time-bomb. I do not know what we are going to do when we have a generation of pensioners who are renting in this country with an ageing population. The average house nowadays costs over eight times the average annual salary. The word "mortgage" itself comes from a term from the Middle Ages that means death pledge. Essentially, we will be paying mortgages until we are almost dead and past the age of retirement at this stage. Many banks will accept that. They are lending beyond the average age of retirement because they know people are going to have to be working longer in order to pay off these mortgages, these death pledges we are signing up to.

Ultimately, the cost of housing is going to have to come down. We need to accept that. We need to make housing more affordable for people. People are paying money into rent when they could be paying more money into our economy. They are paying it to private landlords and developers when they could be spending it in their communities. They could have it in saving accounts that could be accruing interest but instead they are paying off other people's mortgages. As I said before, there is a huge transfer of wealth happening in this country between renters and those who are renting out their properties. We need to have a sea-change in how we approach housing in this country and how we approach the issue of renting. The word "landlord" is even outdated. They are not lords. It is an imperialistic term. It implies a huge imbalance in power which exists. We absolutely need to review that. It is archaic.

We saw a report yesterday from Sherry FitzGerald that there is a deficit of nearly 39,000 when it comes to student accommodation beds in Ireland. I was president of the national students' union 11 years ago. There was a huge issue in terms of the availability of student accommodation then. It has got so many times worse now to the point where many students cannot even afford to rent. They do not have access to accommodation. There has been a huge skew towards the private sector to solve this but the private sector is not going to dig us out of the hole we are in. We have to have a more active role from the State in terms of building, working with local authorities and getting homes built because ultimately it will be a supply issue. We are talking about renters now but the whole thing is connected.

I was at a press conference in Buswells Hotel this morning, which I attended with members of the disabled community and students who are calling for an emergency payment for disabled people. We know the last budget has made disabled people in Ireland less well off. Disabled organisations estimate that they are less well off by €1,400. I was extremely sad to hear from a young man at that conference that as he could not afford to heat his home, he had to go out and buy an extra blanket to sleep in. He has to chose between eating and heating. That is the sad state of affairs we are at in this country. There should be social floor under which nobody can fall but the floor is gone. There is no floor. There are people in employment now who are falling into homelessness. I was talking to a plumber in Cork South-Central who was housed one week and was homeless the next. The reality here is that people renting are falling into homelessness. I do not need to tell the Minister of State about Cork and the availability of properties at a council level that are suitable for people who are disabled in order to live independently. That is a whole other issue about their economic independence and to be able to live independently. I am meeting people week in, week out, where there are three generations in the one house.

This is a wealthy country. We are a wealthy country but that wealth is not going into the pockets of ordinary people. I do not know what the Government will do in the next budget. Will it introduce another small rent credit? That is not going to help with the cost of living and the cost of renting. We believe this legislation is going to make these costs worse. I wish I could say I believed it was going to work. If we thought it would work we would not be opposing it but this is genuinely going to make things more difficult for people who are renting. That is why we called for it to be scrapped. We have brought amendments to try to make it better in whatever way we can but unfortunately, the Government is not supporting that. Not only has the Government been reliant on the private rental market and private investment but it is fair to say that the Government has been reliant on emigration to an extent. It is almost like we need people to leave the country; it is just not working. As the eldest of five girls, three of my younger sisters have left Ireland because they do not want to be paying extortionate rents. They do not see home ownership in their near future and things like public transport do not even work, so they left the country. I hope they will be able to come back one day and that they may be able to afford to buy their own home. For the minute, there are a lot of people in this case. We have the highest outward levels of migration since 2015 in this country. Meanwhile, the Government is also blaming immigration for the housing crisis. We have heard from Fine Gael in particular that immigration is contributing to the housing crisis whereas a lot of people who are coming into the country are key workers and are propping up our healthcare system because we are losing our own key workers at the same time. We are losing teachers, healthcare workers and members of the Garda from this country because they cannot aspire to own their own homes. They are going to places like Dubai where they may have a better standard of living, instead of being trapped in renting with no prospect of owning their own homes in Ireland.

We will be opposing this Bill as we did in the Dáil but we urge the Minister of State to consider the amendments that are being put down. These are sensible amendments that need to happen.

The haste with which this Bill has been undertaken is disappointing. We talk about democracy and commitment to the institutions we are elected to, yet a Bill this important will go through the Seanad and Dáil and be in place for 1 March. I presume that is the objective. We have Committee and Report Stages, and they are all being rushed through. I suspect the Government is going to guillotine the Bill if it is not going through fast enough and if Members are talking, analysing and examining various aspects of it. This is the most substantial change to the regulation of the private rental sector in over a decade and the Government is pushing it through over a few weeks in the Houses. I could be wrong there, but my understanding is that it will be guillotined and there will be no respect. The Bill is going to have a massive impact.

I meant to say earlier that when we look at students, we know the overwhelming majority of them do not live in the student-specific accommodation sector but in the private rental sector. Typically, they are seeking a lease for nine months and not 12 months. Come September, they are going to get hit substantially again. The vast majority of families in Donegal, west Cork and Mayo do not have access to specific student-built accommodation. There is some. I know UCD is building more. Each year, it builds a few more units, but it just does not meet the demand from students. Young people leaving west Cork, Donegal or Mayo are looking forward to going to college, getting a little bit of independence, meeting new friends, going out and enjoying the nightlife, studying, being educated and becoming independent. What will happen to them is that they will not be able to afford it because rents will be going up and up. Security of tenure is not going to be a huge factor for these students, but the cost will have a major impact on them. The cost of rents will be an issue for young students coming up to Dublin or going to Galway, for example, if they are in the midlands or Dublin and travelling. They are eating into the private rental market. They are going to be very much impacted by this change. The Bill's impact on third level education is one aspect of this issue.

Up to a little while ago, I was on the board of a school in Rathmines. It has struggled to get teachers to come up and teach in the Harold's Cross-Rathmines area because they could not afford the rents. The same goes for nurses, doctors and pharmacists. People in the medical and educational sectors cannot afford it. Schools cannot get teachers and principals now because of the rents. Those individuals cannot afford the rents they are expected to pay. A teacher is not going to be able to afford a one-bedroom apartment down in the glass bottle site, where the rent is €2,500 a month, or just down off Fenian Street, where the rent sought is €2,700. More supply might come on stream in Dublin, but ordinary people will not be able to afford it. Teachers, guards and doctors will not be able to afford it.

What use is bringing on stream all these units? More and more, it is creating a two-tier society, where if people have money, they will have accommodation, but if they do not have money, they will not have accommodation. They will be subjected to living in local authority housing that is being neglected and forgotten about. Dublin City Council recently said that it was going to cost €400 million or €500 million to move the civic offices from the quays up to the site on Kevin Street and to develop that site. That is great. Happy days. However, how can the council manage to find the millions of euro required to develop the Kevin Street site when across the road 79 apartments are lying empty in the middle of a housing crisis? It can find the money to redevelop the Kevin Street site, but residents in flat complexes right across Dublin, including in Pearse House and Markievicz House, are left in completely unacceptable conditions. The Government can allocate the funding to reconstruct the civic offices, but it cannot ensure that people, families and communities in the inner city have decent homes to live in. It is just not right.

Ordinary workers are being driven out. A two-tier society is being created. We have the affluent down in Ringsend, over in Fenian Street or up in the new apartments in and around the south inner city while ordinary people cannot afford those properties. It is very frustrating to see the Government rushing this legislation through, ignoring the institutions its Members have been elected to and ramming through a Bill that will have a devastating impact on young people and old people. Senator Harmon mentioned this aspect. Older people are going to be hugely affected by it as well. I was contacted recently by a couple who had got a notice to quit. They are each in or around 61 or 62 years of age. They are not going to be able to rent one of these new apartments the big companies are building. Where are they going to end up then? They are going to end up using homeless services and it will be a result of the Government's neglect of ordinary people and middle-income workers.

We hear about the middle class. Middle-class people are being squeezed out, too. Their kids are not going to be able to afford to pay €500,000 for a new house and they are not going to be able to afford to rent. We will get to a point where we have young people with decent jobs and relatively decent incomes of, say, €40,000 a year, who are working hard, doing everything right and paying their bills. They are not able to save enough to buy a house. They are struggling. They cannot have children because they cannot afford to do so. They have only one room. Where are they going to keep the second or third child? They do not have the room. The cost of childcare has gone through the roof as well. Where are people expected to find all of this money to pay for the costs and set up a family home? It is nearly impossible.

If people are on middle-income wages, they will not have enough to pay rent in the high-rent rental areas. I know those and have documented them. They are also earning too much to go on the council housing lists. Where do they go then? They have to couch surf. They end up in family hubs.

A person in recovery contacted me.

This single individual cannot go home and had to move into a supported accommodation, but is being asked to leave that supported accommodation after eight months. Where does that person go now? There were 1,800 people ahead of him or her on the housing list. The person works and does all the right things but cannot afford to rent or buy a home or get a mortgage.

It is depressing for young people. I would not like to be a young person trying to make my way in the world right now, because of the challenges. Like I said, setting up a family or even just trying to survive independent of your parents is becoming increasingly difficult. The new renters in new tenancies will be facing potential rent increases in the order of 20%, 25% or 30%. That is what their increase in rent will be over a year. In the case of Galway, it will be €5,000 and in the Minister of State's own constituency, I do not know if he has mentioned it to his constituents, but renters are going to pay roughly €3,500 extra per year in rent because of this Bill. Has the Minister of State told his constituents that?

I have not because it is not true.

Well, we have done the studies and the figures are there. The Minister of State should be honest with his constituents in Cork because it is going to have a massive impact on people. Those same people are going to end up in homeless services, back at home or couch surfing. People in addiction are not going to be able to recover out of their addiction because they will be trying to navigate the many obstacles put in their way, such as when it comes to childcare and recovery services. It is going to have a huge impact on everybody in society.

There is no doubt we all want to solve this crisis. Labour has a strong track record on housing. We had the housing Department while in government. We put forward proposals that were not always supported, but we also put forward proposals that were supported. We definitely do not want to disagree with this. We see there is, of course, room for a rental market, but we have put in 69 amendments and I cannot understand why none of them were taken up. We have a track record and a history. We have been calling for a State construction company since 2024, and I know other people have come along with it now too. We are not trying to be awkward. We in the Labour Party believe the market is not going to solve the housing crisis.

This Bill is trying to appease institutional landlords. We can see this right across the board. A three-year rent freeze is nothing to be looking for. For general, smaller landlords, a three-year rent freeze is not the end of the world. Ruling out no-fault eviction is not going to be the end of the world and neither is stopping evicting children into homelessness. These are all very easy things on which the Government could work with a small landlord. It is the big institutional landlords who are the ones influencing this Bill. That is wrong and the Government should listen to the Opposition. We all live in the same constituencies. In Sligo where I live, the average rent has gone up 90% since Covid, with the average rent of a house being €1,400. That is crazy. In Leitrim, it is €1,300, having gone up 98% since Covid.

If we wanted to have a full governmental approach to this, which I thought we would and that is one way we could look at solving the housing crisis, this would have been able to support bringing in the minimum wage for apprentices, which we have previously brought before the Seanad. We have a shortage of apprentices and there are many of them leaving in the first year, with low pay cited as one of the main reasons. I cannot understand why this was not taken into account. Instead of trying to appease smaller landlords, we are actually talking about vulture funds here. The Bill reflects the neoliberal influence that, unfortunately, this Government is paying homage to.

My own party colleagues have brought forward legislation on the right to flexible work and the right to remote working. If you can do your job from home, you should be entitled to do it there. Again, this would relieve the housing crisis. I get the train up and down to Sligo. We can see the homeless crisis is very hard, and it took me a long time to get my head around it, seeing so many people, including children, homeless. As Labour Party spokesperson on workers' rights, I have made the point that there many low-paid workers are stuck in the middle. They cannot afford rent and, in my opinion, the HAP rates are too low. I know I should not be saying that because I do not want to be giving money to private landlords, but the HAP rates need to be increased until the supply of housing is there. The HAP rates are too low, so people are getting notices to quit and they have nowhere to go. The thresholds for social housing are also too low. To be eligible for a social house in Sligo, you have to earn €30,000. That is it. They should be higher. They have not been reviewed for years and should be higher until more housing comes on stream. If we look at building houses, why are there not more affordable to rent and affordable to buy houses being built? I argue this Bill aims to appease institutional landlords.

Low pay is an area we have spoken about, and I know people here have spoken about pensions. Every day we are contacted on these issues. The main thing all of us as politicians hear about is housing, but there are also pensioners, as Senator Andrews said. I have pensioners coming to me who are 60 or 65 years of age and have received notices to quit but have nowhere to go. Where are they going to go? The issue of student accommodation has come up many times and there is a lack of available purpose-built student accommodation but. until it is built, and there are strides being made to build it, why can accommodation not be put into that in the meantime, so that students will not be affected by this?

I am disappointed the Minister of State is not listening to the amendments. There are many qualified people with experience and knowledge on the Opposition benches. They are worthy of having their amendments listened to. Instead, the Bill will be rammed and pushed through the House. We spent hours deliberating over the Mental Health Bill and the defamation Bill, and rightly so; that is our job. We are here to talk through legislation and work it out; not to have it rammed through. I hope the Minister of State will reconsider the idea of bulldozing this through just because he does not want to listen to very sensible amendments from all the Opposition benches.

I echo what Senator Cosgrove just said. There is an opportunity to not guillotine the debate tomorrow and it would be fantastic if that opportunity was taken.

Senator Harmon talked about the terminology of landlords being outdated. While I wish that were true and I wish it were archaic, the reality is it is not. There were 5,000 eviction notices issued in the past three months. It is almost like we are approaching Famine-level evictions in Ireland and, like the Famine, these evictions are based on economic reasons because people cannot afford rent. We will see that soar in this context. We had evictions in Kilkenny this week and in Waterford. It is so evocative and painful for people that there are community members getting out on the streets, trying to defend their neighbour who, through no fault of their own, cannot pay rent.

When we talk about homelessness, and we have these endless figures increasing month after month, it is heartbreaking and can be difficult. The more the figures increase, the less human it becomes, and it is more about numbers. We put less of a face on it. Since it was pancake Tuesday yesterday, it reminded me of that. I recently spoke to a mother who is living in homeless accommodation. She told me that the most heartbreaking thing for her is when she is talking to her child about their whole situation.

They have been there for months and there is no pathway out for them. There is nowhere to go, so they are living in emergency accommodation. Her child asked, "Can we have pancakes today?" All that is required to make pancakes is milk, flour and eggs. It is the simplest thing; cheap as chips. However, she cannot do that for her daughter because she does not have a hob, a fridge or access to cooking facilities. Many families would not have had pancakes. We all had our pancakes down in the canteen. They did not have pancakes yesterday, Pancake Tuesday. It was not available because she could not do the simplest thing. What a small gesture for a child any day of the week. It does not need to be Pancake Tuesday to be able to provide that.

We do not see this Bill bringing those people out of homelessness. It will increase supply, but we do not see it driving down rents or providing more affordable accommodation where people can live. That is the challenge for us. We do not see it stopping evictions, which are increasing. We do not see it stopping the rise in the number of homeless people. It would be great for the Minister of State to be able to tell us what will happen. I appreciate that we have been putting up our hands to speak and that he has not yet had the opportunity to come back in. These are the things in respect of which we want answers, because it is hard for us when we strongly believe that the legislation will not fix those things. It will not put mothers back in their homes with their children in order that they can make pancakes. It will not stop people from having to go out on the street to stop their neighbours being evicted. We all appreciate that this is so real for many people.

We all receive representations all the time. It is the most heartbreaking thing. People come to us, as representatives, and ask if we can help them with finding somewhere to live or getting out of emergency accommodation, but we cannot do anything. The local authorities are struggling to meet the demand. Senator Cosgrove laid it out beautifully. We believe that the incentive behind this legislation is coming from private investors and is not being driven by affordable housing demand. That is the issue. We are seeing the kind of colonial tenant class and landlord class that are so etched into our history being played out in modern Ireland, and that is dark and bleak. If it goes on like this, we will be in an even worse situation, if people can imagine that, than we are today.

Some of the amendments are mitigating efforts to try to make the Bill a little more realistic and a bit more manageable. Perhaps we will have time to speak about them today and tomorrow.

I mentioned that the increase in rents in Cork would be around €3,600 per year and the Minister of State said that is not true. What will the cost of an average market reset new tenancy in County Cork be from March? What assessment did the Department undertake and will it publish that research?

Can the Minister of State give a commitment that the Government will not guillotine the debate on the Bill?

As we have no indication from other speakers-----

Sorry, before the Chair calls the Minister of State, I wish to point out that Opposition Members have spoken for an hour and a half without addressing one amendment. They have wasted an hour and a half. I still ask for a Bill not to-----

This is Committee Stage.

They have had three-----

-----and there is no time limit on Senators' contributions. I remind Senator Flaherty of the Standing Orders of the House. As no other Senators are indicating, I call the Minister of State.

I thank Senators for their contributions. It was stated that we are listening to the investors and that this is what is driving the legislation. That is absolutely not the case. The motivation behind this legislation is to support the types of people and situations Senators have been describing, namely the women in emergency accommodation and the pensioners in private rented accommodation. That is exactly what we are trying to do here. We are introducing security of tenure and a nationwide rent pressure zone, which was not there before. I keep coming back to the example of Clonakilty in my area which did not have any rent control restrictions. The latter was non-existent, and now Clonakilty has them. That is exactly the motivation behind the Bill.

Senator Andrews mentioned that rents in Cork are going up by €3,500 per year. Those are figures that he has extrapolated from some report or that he has seen. What he outlined is absolutely not the case.

What will the figures be?

Existing tenancies cannot reset to market rent. How could I go back to my constituents in Cork South-West and say that their rents are going to increase? Existing tenancies cannot reset to market rent. This only applies to first-time tenancies from 1 March.

New tenants-----

Senator-----

There is absolutely no indication that this will happen. I do not know where the Senator is getting that from. I will certainly not be going back to my constituents in Cork South-West with that type of scaremongering.

Senators spoke about the legislation being rushed through, hammered through and so on. We knew this was coming last summer, and even prior to that. We knew of the date of 1 March at that time. This has not been just thought up and rushed through the Dáil. There was pre-legislative scrutiny in respect of this legislation. That is not rushing legislation through the Dáil. I just wanted to address that.

Senator Andrews talked about lobbying and the influence of big developers who have access to the Oireachtas. It is quite well known that the Sinn Féin housing spokesperson in the Oireachtas has a very long list according to the lobbying register. By the way, I do not criticise him for that. In order to get the solutions, we need to talk to as many people as possible. For example, we have gone out and spoken to the NGOs, including Threshold and the Simon Community. We need engagement at all levels. I do not know why this is being used as a political tool.

The Senator mentioned the idea of bringing down rents to drive up rents. The simple fact is that we have a population that is growing significantly. We do not have the supply of units to meet the demand that exists. That is why rents are increasing. We are bringing in a rent pressure zone nationally to ensure that we have those protections. We are bringing in this legislation to ensure there is supply. As I have said previously, the industry has reacted well to the potential for the delivery of units. That is something we welcome. While there has been a lot of commentary in this House today, there is also been a lot of positive commentary about this legislation that has not been mentioned. Senator Andrews mentioned rents in Dublin estates on quite a few occasions. If we talk about it honestly, Dublin will benefit more from this legislation than anywhere else-----

Not in Ringsend.

-----by driving up the supply of apartments and other units. It is all about supply. Of course there are other factors. We have to introduce affordable housing schemes and we are. We have to introduce social housing. We are building record amounts of social housing. That is all part of it. There is no one silver bullet to fix the housing crisis; there are many elements to this.

Senators also mentioned affordability. There is quite a lot of work being done on that issue. The Government's new plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities, contains an action plan with regard to housing supply and targeting homelessness between 2025 and 2030. It will provide 90,000 affordable supports to help people secure a home of their own. That is the ambition in the plan over the next while. We are seeing some positive outcomes with the trends in the delivery of housing. Since 2022, 4,500 homes have been delivered by AHBs, local authorities the Land Development Agency. There is a strong pipeline of future developments with over 5,150 additional affordable purchase homes approved for support from affordable housing funds across 22 local authorities. Indications are good.

From a funding point of view, money is not the issue. This legislation should not be seen in isolation. The plan is being enabled by the largest ever capital investment in the history of the State of €275 billion over ten years to significantly upgrade the country's infrastructure and make the environment for building homes much better.

We are trying to put in place an environment for a significant upscaling and delivery of housing. Direct funding for housing will be at unprecedented levels. In 2026 alone, more than €9 billion in capital funding will be provided through the Exchequer to the LDA and the Housing Finance Agency. This cannot be seen in a silo. It is all part of an approach across different Departments and Government agencies to ensure we increase supply at record levels. This legislation ensures the involvement of the private sector, which is key. However, the State is doing more than ever. The State currently delivers the biggest proportion of housing in the country. That is probably not how it should be. We scale up and do as much as we can to increase delivery. However, the private sector will have to play its part.

Senator Stephenson referred to women fleeing domestic violence, which is a really important consideration. I appreciate her doing that. Everything possible should be done to accommodate such women. However, again what is being lost in the conversation is that we now have a nationwide rent pressure zone, which means there are controls, and we also have security of tenure. In addition, new tenancies will not be reset to market value.

A question that was repeatedly asked was when we will see a cooling down of the significant and unprecedented increase in rents currently seen throughout the country. Again, supply is the key here. We have to get supply to critical mass so that we get to the point where supply is sufficient.

Senator Harmon referred to pensioners. To reiterate that point, the motivation of this legislation is to have the dual effect of, first, increasing supply and creating an environment where it is again viable to build units, apartments in particular, and, second, there is security of tenancy, which is also key. It is about protecting the tenant but also increasing supply. That is really important.

I agree with Senator Harmon that the word "landlord" should be done away with. That is just my own opinion. I do not know what the potential is for that happening. I agree with the Senator that is an outdated term.

To come back to the amendments, this amendment deletes the lines that will allow me to move the provisions in the Bill, yet it is asking for a report within three months. It does not make sense and it cannot work. That is one of the main reasons the Government opposes the amendments.

The Minister of State mentioned increasing supply in Dublin. The reality is that increase will be in high-end property. I was on the glass bottle site where 3,800 new homes are planned. The Minister of State is right that 350 of those will be social homes. In my view, and in the community's view, it is not enough but it is welcome. The number of people on the housing list in that area is through the roof. As I said, people cannot afford to rent or buy, so the only option is to live in overcrowded homes in Ringsend, Pearse Street or wherever it is and then look to rent. The reality is they cannot afford to do so. It costs €3,000 and €3,500, respectively, for a two-bedroom and three-bedroom apartment in the glass bottle site. In another building not far from there, the Shore Club, it cost €675,000 to buy a one-bedroom unit. No social housing was allocated on that site. The developer made a financial contribution off site and homes are being built. While that is all very well, not all of them are being built in the community. The council had to buy homes down in Heuston Quarter, so only some of these homes are in and around the area.

As regards the high-end, expensive apartments, it costs almost €1 million for a two-bedroom apartment in the Shore Club. My understanding is that not all of those have been sold. Who is able to afford them? If people do not live in them, they will rent them out at astronomical rents. While there may be more units coming on stream, they not for ordinary working families who are already squeezed and struggling with the cost of living. Is that what the Government is doing?

The Minister of State is telling me that part of the solution to the housing crisis is to produce top-end apartments. In one of the blocks, there is a little home cinema which residents can book. There is a gym, which is absolutely fantastic, but that is not going to make these apartments affordable for ordinary people living in the inner city. The glass bottle site has a fantastic tradition. It is intertwined with the local community in Ringsend. Families worked there and were let go out of it. At one stage, the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, offered the Government a discount on the sale price of the site, and the Government refused. It could have built 3,500 units of public, social and affordable housing with various types of cost-rental homes, but it did not take up that offer. That is a shame on the Government.

In regard to high rents in Cork, the Minister of State misunderstood my question. We are talking about new tenancies. The Minister of State is saying rents in existing tenancies will not go up. What he is doing there is deflecting from what we are talking about. The Bill states that new tenancies from 1 March will go to market reset. Is that the case? If so, what assessments were done by the Department? If assessments were done, why will the Department not publish them? If they were not done, how can the Department have figures for how much rents will go up? The Minister of State might come back to me on that.

The Minister of State said this Bill will bring security of tenure to tenants. However, security of tenure is no use to any tenant if they cannot afford the rent. The Bill is confusing because it will create different categories of tenants. There will be those in new tenancies that start after 1 March, there will be existing tenancies and then there will be students. There are different groups of tenants and some are going to be afforded protections while others are not. That is highly unfair. All tenants deserve security of tenure but they deserve security of tenure with an affordable rent. There should not be a differential across the tenancies.

In relation to the Residential Tenancies Board figures Senator Andrews referred to, the RTB figures are based on its predictions around existing rent and market rent. Sinn Féin looked at those. For example, in my county, Cavan, the average rent is €947 per month. The market rent in Cavan is €1,226. For a new tenancy after 1 March, a landlord could potentially increase the average rent by €279 a month. If landlords do that, and I predict many of them will, certainly if they have not raised the rent in some time and cannot do so again for another six years, it could result in a rent increase of €3,300 over a year for tenants. That is what we are basing our figures on. They are average figures, of course, and we do not know what every individual landlord is going to do.

However, I predict that the vast majority of landlords will take the opportunity to raise the rent when a new tenancy comes along because they will not get an opportunity to do it again for another six years.

The Minister of State talked about the need for an increase in supply, particularly with regard to apartments. I can probably see an increase in apartments in Dublin, maybe Cork and other large urban centres, but they will be quite high end and out of reach to most ordinary people. For counties like Cavan, Monaghan and the smaller, more rural ones where there will be small, non-major groups of apartments, I cannot see investors being interested in building apartments in those small-to-medium-sized towns. It will not benefit any tenant or prospective tenant in the likes of Cavan and the more rural counties.

We need an increase in the supply of public and affordable housing on public land to address this. Many people are facing eviction because their landlords are selling. Quite a number of landlords are selling as a result of this Bill because they find it confusing and feel it penalises them, especially smaller landlords who are now deemed large landlords if they have four or more properties. That is not many. Those tenants being evicted from a property are in an awful position because they have nowhere to go and cannot afford the rent. Even if they qualify for HAP, there are no available properties anyway. Landlords are picking and choosing, and most of them are not choosing HAP.

The Minister of State mentioned our referencing of Irish institutional investors, vulture funds and other big investment companies. The Minister of State said there had been engagement with people from all of the sectors concerning housing. While they might have been engaged with, were they listened to? Has the Government engaged with communities and groups like Focus Ireland, the Simon Communities in Ireland and so forth? I do not think they are in favour of this Bill. Rather, they are fearful of what will happen as a result of it. They are going to see an increase in the number of people trying to access the homeless services they provide. Maybe the Minister of State and the Department have engaged, but have they listened? I fear not.

I am always hearing stuff from the Government benches such as “time is more valuable than money” and, in this case, “it is all about supply”. There is no point in supply, however, if people are not able to afford that supply. With this Bill, supply only seems to play in favour of some parts of Dublin. Supply is not going to increase in Limerick, Cork, Kerry, Tipperary or any of the rural areas. Rather, it will hit those rural areas the hardest because they predominately have houses rather than apartments. In County Limerick, a new tenancy will be an extra €400 per month when market rates come in. In the Minister of State’s county of Cork, it will be an extra €300, while in Kerry it will be an extra €250. I am focusing on Munster at the moment. Most people in County Limerick cannot afford rent as it is, never mind an extra €400 per month for a new tenancy. It is absolutely crazy.

Every week, I receive calls to my office from tenants facing eviction notices who ask what they should do and whether they will have to go to homeless services. Homeless services will get to a point - it is horrible to say it - where they will not be able to take these people. They are going to run out of space because people cannot afford to stay in rented accommodation.

Most of these people do not even want to be in rented accommodation; they want to own their own homes. Going back ten, 20 or 30 years, the thing in this country was to get a good job and buy a house, but that is not even a possibility any more. To take a couple, one a teacher and the other a garda, as an example, people would have thought that, since they had such amazing jobs, they were on the pig’s back and would have no problem getting a house, having kids, putting them through college, buying the new car and going on holidays every year. That is not the case any more. These things cannot be done on those wages. People need to be earning over €100,000 to be able to even think about going to a mortgage company. Very few people can go to a mortgage company and get a mortgage. Maybe they could 20 years ago because house prices were on average between €200,000 and €250,000, and people could get one for a little bit cheaper if they were willing to downgrade. I am looking at houses being built in rural County Limerick in the west and a three-bedroom bungalow, off the plans, is €500,000. It is absolute madness to think about what the cost is going to be. No young person can afford that.

I listened to other Senators talk about emigration. Young people are finishing school and college and getting out of here. This Bill is going to hit college students worse than it will hit rural Ireland. It is going to be bad for rural Ireland but it will be 100 times worse for college students because they take out a new lease every nine months. That is a new tenancy every nine months. It is going to be great for the people who own the houses because they will be able to keep increasing their rent every nine months. Where is the fairness for these students? They are breaking themselves every day to get to college. A lot of them have to commute. There are three colleges in Limerick city and the students in the county who cannot afford to drive but might be lucky enough to get accommodation in the city are now going to hit with this where they will pay huge, extortionate rents. I am sorry - it is not going to be them paying, but their parents. If they are in college Monday to Friday, they are only getting weekend jobs. They are not earning enough to pay for this rent. It is the parents who pay it, and they are being crippled left, right and centre.

This is crazy. It is all for large corporate landlords and developers. This is not for the one-off landlord. Those large companies pay little to no tax. It is crazy to think that they can get away with upping the rent every single year for a new tenancy and not have to pay any penalty for it. I cannot understand it. It is as if the Government is punishing renters for the failure in housing. That is how it comes across. People who are renting are in that situation because they cannot afford to buy a house.

Let us go back a few years. I built my first house when I was 20. I could not do that now if I were a 20-year-old. There would be no chance in hell I could do that now. I have two adult children at home. I have four children altogether but two of them are adults. I am never going to see the back of them. Do not get me wrong; I love them but I am going to get sick of living with them at some stage. The day one of them comes home and says they are going to have a child, that is it. I am sorry but there is not a chance. I am going to have to look at building chalets around my house or something because they are never moving out, and they know that. The only way they are ever going to move out is if they emigrate. I do not want that. While I wish for them to be able to live independently, I do not want to lose them. I know that when they emigrate, especially girls, they might meet someone over there and not come home because they end up having their families there. I have a lot of friends living in Australia and Canada who are never coming home. They have children and are married there. They are now residents of those countries and integrated into their societies. They might come home at Christmas to see their parents or if their parents become really sick, God forbid, they might have no choice but to come home. That is it, however.

We have lost many good people, including many tradespeople. They trained as carpenters, builders, plumbers and electricians but we cannot even get one here if we have a problem in our house because none of them lives in the country anymore. This is what is going to happen if we keep pushing up the cost of rent. We are going to end up losing many more people. If Members think emigration is bad now, just give it a couple of months or years when this market reset keeps going. It will be 100 times worse. It will be all old people living here and no young people. When we are all retiring, there will be no one to take over and we are going to have the pension problem again. It goes around in a circle constantly.

The Minister of State said he did not want to accept any of the amendments. Deputy Ó Broin has brought forward many brilliant ideas and I do not know whether it is stubbornness or pettiness that the Government parties do not want to look at them. He has consulted experts – not Sinn Féin experts, but independent experts - who back up some of the policies he has suggested, but the Government just does not want to look at them. It is just going to keep making the same mistakes over and over.

The Minister of State asked about how we fix the housing crisis. There is one simple answer - we need to get rid of the parties that caused it. I do not mean for that to sound as bitchy as it does, but we need to get rid of the ones that caused the housing crisis. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been in government for the past ten and 15 years, respectively.

Jesus Christ, if we go back 15 years, people were able to live. People cannot live any more. It is absolutely heartbreaking to see that the next generation is going to come up and will not know what it was like to be able to go out for a drink, to not struggle to pay for their car tax or to be able to put diesel in the car and not worry. They are putting in €10 worth of diesel one day and waiting until the following day to put in another €10. They are seeing how they go by the end of the week. Fifteen years ago, we were able to live a little bit. This is not living. People are not living right now. They are struggling to survive every single day. The Bill, in allowing the upping of rent, is absolutely farcical. How can the Government say rents will go up so supply will come up so we can bring down the rent again? It is completely ridiculous.

I appreciate the comments from Senators but I feel that this Bill is being completely mis-characterised. As I said at the outset, the types of people the Senators are describing, including those facing homelessness, those in emergency accommodation and those who are afraid of extortionate rent hikes, are exactly the people we are trying to protect and cater for. If you listen to what the Bill actually does, I am surprised that it is being characterised like that and I am surprised that the Opposition is not supporting it. Six-year tenancies, and rolling, are guaranteed. That is unprecedented. That is security of tenure. Landlords will only be able to reset the rent if the previous tenant has left of their own volition. That is unprecedented security and protection for tenants.

No-fault evictions are no longer legal for landlords who have four tenancies or more, that is, the larger landlords. That is unprecedented. It has been called for in both Houses for a long time. That is what this legislation does. Yet, the Opposition is opposing it. That does not make sense to me. Even for smaller landlords, there is a very limited set of reasons where notices of termination can be served. Rent pressure zones are nationwide. I say it again. I am surprised at how this is being characterised. I am surprised at the level of opposition. As I have summarised, what the Bill is doing is giving greater protection to tenants and increasing supply, which is exactly what is being sought.

I was called petty for not accepting this amendment. The main reason we cannot accept this amendment is because it precludes me from commencing the provisions of the Bill. At the same time, the Opposition is looking for a report in three months' time. It does not make sense. That is one of the main reasons we cannot support this amendment.

I mentioned a point previously to which the Minister of State did not respond, which was an assessment of which rents will be going up. What assessments did the Government do? If it did assessments, why will it not publish them and explain how it came to these figures? When I said the rent in County Cork will go up by €3,500 per year, the Minister of State said it will not. Where is the assessment to show that is not true? How can the Minister of State tell me that is not true? Did the Government conduct research or assessments? It would be important for people to see how it came to the conclusion that rents will not rise. Is it fair to say that the Minister of State is saying that rents will not rise? Perhaps he would respond to that.

I thank the Minister of State. I want to come back in on the amendment because I am confused. I know the Minister of State said he thought it should be ruled out of order. I think it was accepted that it was a valid amendment. Perhaps the Minister of State could explain it to me more clearly. What we are seeking is the deletion of a section and the insertion of a section that we are requesting to have a report after three months so we can get analysis. Will the Minister of State clarify that point? We seem not to be on the same page there. I do not think any of the Seanad staff have made a mistake in accepting the amendment.

I want to go back over some points. The figures that are there do not refer to existing tenancies. We are talking about new tenancies after 1 March, which will go through the market reset. It might be fine for people in cities. In fact, it is not going to be fine for people in Dublin or anything like it. However, those people are not going to be impacted as much as people where I live. I am from Laois. I talk about it enough in this House. No big private investors are going to come to Laois and build anything for us. We cannot get anyone to do anything there. We are the forgotten county. We are really going to suffer. The Minister of State mentioned that everywhere is going to be a rent pressure zone now, but what security of tenure is there going to be for people if they are facing such a dramatic increase in their rent now? It is the dramatic increase in rent that we have a problem with.

Let us consider Josie down the road, who might be paying €900 rent now. She might only be there for two years. She moves out and has to move elsewhere. The average market rent in Laois is much higher than €900. I know a lot of people around Laois who are paying €900 or €1,000 in rent but that is not the market value at the moment. The market value is substantially higher. I worry that big landlords are going to completely take advantage here. These are the issues we are pointing out.

These are the reasons we want reports that will allow us all to sit down together and look at the situation. I have sat down with representatives of the Simon Communities and Focus Ireland. We have looked through the reports. I have looked at the analysis and the homeless figures that they are expecting as a result of the impact of the driving up of rents. It is concerning. I know the Minister of State is saying that the Government is collaborating or engaging with those organisations, but it is not the same collaboration as we have been having, day in and day out, with the Simon Communities and all the homeless agencies.

I cannot see how this Bill will have any positive impact for people in Laois. I cannot see how it will have any impact for people all over Ireland except the big developers. We need to appeal to those big developers to come in here and build more properties but this is not going to do it. The economic experts have come out to say this will not result in the building of many houses. I am hearing so much deflection but am not hearing points or answers. Is the Minister of State disagreeing with the facts? I am not talking about existing tenancies. I am talking about new tenancies. That is exactly what this Bill does. From 1 March, new tenancies are going to market reset. That means the highest point in the market in a certain area and it is a massive problem. There is no point in fluffing around. We are here. Rents are going to go up for people and we have nothing to say about it. I would like to hear answers on those aspects.

I say to Senator Andrews that there has been sufficient analysis of the rental market over the past two years to inform this legislation. There is absolutely no doubt about that whatsoever. Not only that, there has been engagement with the housing and homelessness NGOs, including Threshold, Focus Ireland, the Simon Communities, etc. There is no doubt about that whatsoever.

As I said, the Housing Agency and the Housing Commission are often quoted in this House, and we should listen to them. I ask everyone to go and visit the Housing Agency website and view the report which specifically says that we need a reset. That is exactly what we are doing.

In order to answer the specific question and try to avoid confusion, this amendment seeks a report within three months of publication of the legislation. That is fine. There will be one in 12 months anyway, which is one of the reasons we are opposing this amendment. That is what it specifically asks for. I do not think it gives enough time for a proper assessment and review, but that is okay. That part of the amendment is fine. However, it also deletes the lines that allow me or the Minister to commence the provisions of the Bill, which means there can be no report. I hope that makes sense. That is why we are opposing the amendment.

I welcome Deputy Ardagh, a former Member of this House. She is accompanied by Ms Regina Burke, Mr. Ronan O'Sullivan, Mr. Jimmy Lawless, Ms Jennifer Davitt and Mr. Killian O'Sullivan. I hope they enjoy their visit to Leinster House this evening. They are in very capable hands. I call Senator Andrews.

In reference to the research carried out over two years, I ask that it be published so that people can see it and make their own minds up, rather than having to take the Government's word for it.

I hear the Government talking about how it is committed to protecting tenants’ security in their tenancy. I have to question that because, when we look at the tenant in situ scheme, it was a scheme that gave people some bit of security. People renting in the private sector are waiting for the notice to quit. As I mentioned earlier, the average lease time is three or three and a half years, so people are waiting for the notice to quit. The tenant in situ scheme was giving people a little bit of security. It obviously was not going to work for everybody, but it was going to work for a lot of people.

I know one person renting in the private rental sector who received three different notices to quit during their time in private tenancy. That person has had to up sticks and leave their tenancy, their HAP property, on three separate occasions. The first and second occasions were very close together. That person dreads receiving a notice to quit. They are waiting to get on the social housing list, but that can take ten or 11 years. In area M in this area, there are more than 1,000 people on the waiting list for a one-bedroom property. That is the housing list for one very small area. The tenant in situ scheme was giving people some security but the Government has deconstructed it to almost nothing. Dublin City Council has very few tenant in situ applications. It is dealing with that.

The tenant in situ scheme was going to allow persons to live in the home they had been renting up to then, and the council was obviously going to take it on, but that was effectively scrapped by the Government while people were midway through their applications. When the Government says it is concerned about the welfare of renters, it rings a bit hollow when we know that the same Government effectively got rid of the tenant in situ scheme.

We hear talk about protecting tenants. Again, I go back to the fact that many tenants cannot afford to pay the rents. It is all very well having security of tenure and no-fault evictions, but if a person cannot afford the rent, it does not really matter what we have. It is like the difference between theory and practice. I ask that the Minister of State consider publishing the research and findings the Department has which allow him make a call that rent is not going to go up to €3,500 per year and €5,000 per year in Galway. I would appreciate it if the Minister of State could respond on that.

The Minister of State talked about consulting different organisations, and we appreciate that he has done that. It is worth pointing out that, for example, Threshold has said that despite the proposed improvements to security of tenure, it is extremely concerned about the decision to allow landlords to set rents to market levels between tenancies, particularly after a renter leaves voluntarily or is evicted for breach of contract. It urges the Government to remedy this gap in the legislation. It is important to note that. It is one thing to say they have been consulted, but we all know there are different levels of consultation and engagement. I appreciate that the Minister of State engages with many stakeholders and, as anyone who has worked on any type of policy with a wide range of stakeholders will know, it is impossible to get consensus. For us, groups like Threshold, which represent the most vulnerable people renting in society, are the voices to be prioritised. I wanted to make that point clear.

The tenant in situ scheme is still an option for local authorities for a variety of reasons, especially when it comes to people who are exiting homelessness. It is very important to say that the scheme has not been scrapped.

Again, the Housing Agency report is available on the Housing Agency website. I urge the Senator to view it because the recommendations within have informed this legislation. It certainly was not back-of-the-envelope calculations, which I think is what Members have done to come up with figures like €3,500 for Cork South-West. If the people of Cork South-West are listening, I can tell them there is no evidence that is going to happen. I want to ensure that is out there. I cannot support this amendment.