Alan Kelly says new housing plan must be agreed ‘within weeks’

Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly has insisted that the new housing package must be agreed within weeks to ensure nobody is homeless for Christmas.

Mr Kelly and Minister for Finance Michael Noonan downplayed reports of a rift over measures aimed at tackling the housing crisis.

The Minister for the Environment said the issue of increased rent is a “big, big problem” and one the Government has to deal with.

“I believe the most important thing we have to do is to ensure that people stay in their homes,” he said, speaking in Limerick.

“I certainly am the person who ends up dealing with the consequences of it but I am not the Minister who has the levers to actually deal with preventing many of these people from being turfed out of their homes or leaving their homes.

“I want to ensure a cross-Government approach that has levers that are activated to make sure that people are kept in their homes... coming up to Christmas I don’t want to see issues whereby people are being turfed out because of rent increases or any other issues or to see children who haven’t got homes for Christmas, because that to me is unacceptable.”

The issue has been divisive for the Coalition parties, but Mr Kelly received the strong backing of his colleague Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin yesterday.

Mr Howlin said rent certainty needed to be agreed and insisted it would not do any harm to the market.

The Minister for Finance said tough negotiations needed to take place before an agreement on rent certainty could be reached. The issue of supply needed to be addressed before a package could be agreed, he said.

Penalised

Meanwhile, Government TDs who are also landlords have said they support rent certainty measures but insist landlords should not be penalised as a consequence.

The Dáil Register of Members’ Interests indicates some 30 Government deputies had rental properties last year.

Fine Gael’s Tom Barry (Cork East), who described himself as an “unwilling landlord”, said “using a blunt instrument like capping the rents will make a bad situation worse”.

His party colleague Michelle Mulherin from Mayo said she would favour “taking a serious look at” rent certainty on an interim basis.

‘Extraordinary measures’

“Extraordinary times may call for extraordinary measures. The market is not normal. It’s skewed because of economic turmoil that we have had which has affected everything, including the construction sector,” she said.

John O’Mahony, who recently moved constituency from Mayo to Galway West, said he would be against rents “spiralling out of control”.

“To a certain extent I would like to see it regulated to make sure people aren’t exploited or losing their homes. But landlords are human too. I’ve dropped rent at times when it was necessary. It’s a human situation and you just can’t think of economics all the time.”

For Labour, Arthur Spring from Kerry said the issue of housing supply was crucial and he backed the concept of rent certainty.

“That’s in line with a European norm. It gives certainty and we need to strengthen the rights of tenants. I have unfortunately become a landlord by accident, buying an apartment at the height of the boom . . . Now I find myself renting our family home in Kerry. I’ve an understanding of both perspectives. Some small landlords that bought at the height of the boom are in a precarious position.”