Government biggest beneficiary of rental income in State, Dáil hears

Evicting tenants because a landlord wants to sell a property is “simply not possible or legal in most European countries,” the Dáil has been told as it debated emergency legislation for a winter eviction ban.

Social Democrats housing spokesman Cian O’Callaghan said eviction on such grounds “is totally against the law, be it one house or 100 apartments together” in 14 EU member states.

The Dáil was also told that “the biggest beneficiary of rental income in Ireland today is the Government”.

Independent Kerry TD Michael Healy-Rae, who declared an interest as a landlord, said those involved in property letting pay 56 percent tax on rental income. “It is important to make that clear. For every €1,000 of rent received, the Government gets €560 of that money.”

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Mr Healy-Rae also said that the ban on evictions would do nothing “to increase the availability of housing, public or private”.

The emergency Residential Tenancies (Deferment of Termination Dates of Certain Tenancies) Bill prohibits evictions from the day after the date the legislation is enacted until the end of March, which will extend to June 18th in some cases under phased arrangements to prevent a glut of evictions immediately after the ban is lifted.

Mr O’Callaghan said it was “not normal practice” across the EU as he listed 14 EU member states - including Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Romania - where tenants who are paying their rent cannot be given notices to quit simply because the landlord wishes to sell.

“If the landlords in those countries want to sell then they go ahead and sell, and there is no problem,” he said. “What is it in Ireland that we think it’s okay, or the Government thinks it’s okay, for it to happen here?”

The Dublin Bay North TD said that if the Government did remove that as grounds for eviction “it could be a game changer for giving renters more security and giving stability into the sector” and reducing the number of people being evicted into homelessness.

Mr Healy-Rae said he had been contacted by a landlord, who with 70 others in the Taoiseach’s Cork South-Central constituency, planned to pull out of the business because of the “negative attitude of Government and lack of assistance to them in providing accommodation”.

Minister of State for Housing Peter Burke, who introduced the Bill, said that although a landlord’s constitutionally protected property right to terminate a tenancy “will be constrained by this Bill, it is necessary to take this step to achieve an urgent social objective of preventing tenants being made homeless or having to source alternative accommodation in an extremely constrained market during the coming winter months”.

There were “major trade-offs in undertaking such an emergency measure” and the Government “is balancing the competing priorities of preventing people falling into homelessness and recognising the need to stem fairly the continued exit of small-scale landlords from the private rental sector”.

The Minister added that “this Bill gives us breathing space but it is not a solution”. There remained a need to address core underlying issues by “providing more emergency beds, tackling vacancy, using modular homes and improving allocations and re-lettings to make the most of existing stock”.

People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett highlighted a case he has repeatedly raised of the 35 tenants in Tathony Hall, an apartment complex in Kilmainham Dublin, who have been given notices to quit because the landlord plans to sell the entire building.

“That landlord, with a €700,000 a year rent roll, is claiming he has the right to evict people on the grounds of financial hardship,” Mr Boyd Barrett said. The landlord has argued that the value will drop by 20 per cent if sold with tenants still in situ.

Mr Boyd Barrett also hit out at local authorities and said it was “outrageous that the State itself is sitting on empty properties” and failing to adapt them for accommodation.

He cited a building in his Dún Laoghaire constituency called Kelly’s Hotel which has been empty for 20 years. “It is perfectly suitable to house people in. Nothing happens. It just sits there. There are Ukrainian refugees are desperate for accommodation and people 20 years on the housing list.”