The Coalition Government's response to the growing crisis in the private rented sector is nothing short of disgraceful. It dodged early, necessary action on tenants' rights by establishing a commission to conduct an inquiry into what was required; it then sat on that report for six months and it now proposes to wait for a further two years before implementing the Commission's proposals. Difficulties in the private housing market have generated urgent and repeated Government interventions in recent times. But tenants in private rented accommodation have remained at the mercy of unscrupulous landlords. The number of illegal evictions by landlords in Dublin more than doubled last year, according to Threshold, the national housing organisation. Its director, Mr Kieran Murphy, said the organisation had dealt with 341 illegal evictions and a growing number of landlords were not giving the statutory 28 days notice. In some cases, tenants had come home to find the locks changed. Other landlords, he said, had used more aggressive tactics and cut off the power. Three years ago, he said, Threshold had warned of a developing crisis and it was "appalling" that the timeframe for the introduction of change was a further two years. Hand-in-hand with Government indifference to the travails of tenants in the private rented sector goes its negligent treatment of local authority housing. For the past five years, as the so-called Celtic Tiger bounded ahead and house prices and rents soared, the output of local authority housing remained static. Because people could no longer afford high rents or private housing, the waiting lists for local authority housing mushroomed. Ten per cent of the population is now housed in local authority dwellings in the State, compared to 28 per cent in Northern Ireland. The changes proposed by the Minister of State for housing, Mr Molloy, are a considerable advance on the present situation. After six months, a tenant will be entitled to a four-year occupancy unless the landlord needs to recover possession for specific reasons. Notice to quit will be linked to the length of tenancy and the notice period will range from four to 16 weeks. Rent levels can be no more than the "market rate" and rent reviews will be limited to one a year. A Private Residential Tenancies Board will be established on a statutory basis in two years time to deal with disputes between landlords and tenants in a binding fashion. In the meantime, the board will be established in the autumn and operate on an ad hoc basis. The Labour Party has been particularly critical of the Coalition Government and the minister for the predicted, two-year delay in bringing forward reforms that would give some protection to tenants. It has promised to publish a bill of its own in the near future. The censure is warranted.