Kelly says he needs ‘co-operation’ to deal with rental crisis

Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly has said he requires co-operation from other departments to address issues with the rental market.

A number of reports in recent days have contained critical, unattributed comments about Mr Kelly and his approach to the housing package being worked on by the Government.

Mr Kelly favours freezing some rents but has met stiff opposition from Fine Gael and Minister for Finance Michael Noonan.

On Tuesday he dismissed this comments.

“I take no notice of anonymous commentary,” Mr Kelly said this morning. “If people are cowardly and they don’t want to put their name to stuff, that is their own business. But I don’t get worried about anonymous, press officer briefings. I’ve come through an awful lot, including many death threats so these things don’t bother me.”

He said there had been no rental or housing package on the table in recent weeks and said it was never intended that everything would be completed in the budget.

“Being very direct and straight about it, there was no package. There was no package put together, I didn’t get any package even put towards me. I believe that into the future that the rental issue is the main issue.

“I don’t play politics with people’s lives,” Mr Kelly said, adding there are families and children who could become homeless before Christmas. “Protecting people is the number one issue in my eyes.

“I have done an awful lot about it. I am the minister in charge of housing. I do not control all the levers to make these changes. They vary from the department of finance, who have a very large role, the Department of Public Expenditure, the Department of Social Protection and indeed other departments.

“I am sorry for speaking in the first person but Alan Kelly on his own cannot solve this issue. It’s very simple. I cannot solve this issue without co-operation across a number of departments.”

In an interview with the Sunday Independent, Mr Kelly was critical of the effect on the housing market of the Central Bank rules which stipulate that borrowers must have a 20 per cent deposit.

The Minister this morning said “the rules they brought in need tweaking”.

“Put simply, people are paying more in rent than they possibly would be in mortgages in Dublin. It is particularly an issue for Dublin. I’m not alone in this. Minister Noonan has said the same thing.”

Mr Kelly said he had come through an awful lot recently, “including death threats” and said critical commentary of his performance did not bother him.