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GE2024rentersLABOUR OR SOCIAL Democrats? Which party is promising a three-year rent freeze, a ban on no-fault evictions and a clearer, more transparent rental market?
It’s both of them, actually.
Both parties were out in Dublin city centre today to announced their plans to provide renters with better rights in the wake of a damning report from Daft.ie.
Average rents are dramatically increasing all over the country and, with a dwindling supply, the expected price to pay for a property is almost €2,000 per month, according to today’s Rental Price Report.
Both parties said because the government has failed to get the private rental market under control, State intervention is needed.
Speaking to reports outside the building of real estate investor Kennedy Wilson, Social Democrats candidate for Dublin North-Central Rory Hearne said some institutional investors are taking part in “profit gouging” and that those rents are unfair.
Hearne, who is a lecturer in housing policy at Maynooth University, said many institutional investors see Ireland as a good place to do business and that the Social Democrats want them to invest in affordable housing instead.
Sinn Féin has also proposed a three-year rent freeze and a ban on no-fault evictions.
When it comes to how to regulate institutional investors in the housing market, Labour and the Social Democrats differ.
The Social Democrats are proposing an all-out ban on the bulk purchase of existing homes, claiming that the practice “locks out” first-time buyers. Hearne said the party also wants to increase the level of tax that the firms also pay on their rental income.
Meanwhile, Labour is proposing an increase on the stamp duty for the bulk-purchase of houses or apartments.
Labour’s Dublin South-Central candidate Darragh Moriarty said more landlords need to respect renters’ rights: “On [RTÉ] the other night, Paschal Donohoe said we need more landlords - I don’t disagree with that but we don’t need slumlords.
“We have to stop slumlords for being able to ride roughshod all over renters’ rights. And that’s why we think strong renters’ protection has to be front and center of any next government, whether we’re in it or not,” he added.
Both parties are promising to reinstate the no-fault eviction ban and try to incentivise the increase usage of the tenant-in-situ scheme, so that a resident can remain in the property while it is being sold to a new owner or the local authority.
Hearne said: “An introduction of a no-fault ban on evictions would mean that, as a renter, if you’re paying your rent, if you’re doing nothing wrong, you can stay in that home, and a landlord cannot evict you.
“This is a common measure across Europe, and we should meet our European countries and introduce this protection for renters.”
Both parties agree that the answer to the problem of high rents is in building up supply and Labour and the Social Democrats are promising to build 30,000 and 25,000 affordable homes over five years, respectively.
But controlling skyrocketing rents by disallowing increases and making the rental market more transparent in the short term must also be completed. Moriarty said that the sector needs to be professionalised.
“If you have a relationship with a tenant, it is a professional relationship and we need to have the standards professionalised,” Moriarty told journalists.
Moriarty said that the professionalisation of a tenant-landlord relationship will be further complemented by Labour’s new idea to introduce a Rent Register – which will detail the previous costs of leasing a property for better transparency.
The Social Democrats, similarly, propose a ‘Reference Rent’ system – where the price of properties in the same area and of the similar size and quality are publically listed on a database that pegs rent to the baseline price.
Both parties are also proposing tougher regulations on short-term lets.
The Social Democrats says this can be done by empowering local authorities to enforce planning rules while Labour wants tourist levies and a separate property register for holiday homes, under the control of Fáilte Ireland.
Today’s Daft.ie Rent Price Report found that the average rent around Ireland now stands at €1955 per month and that there is an urgent need to address the lack of supply in the private market.
Ronan Lyons, author of the report and an economist at Trinity College, said the government’s attention has been focused on owner-occupied homes and social housing and that the upswing in construction of rental accommodation in Dublin is “over”.
He said, if not addressed urgently, construction trends in the rest of Ireland are likely to mirror Dublin.
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Why was my comment deleted does the journal endorse Rohingya insurgents violence against native people?
@Johnny Gunn: Agreed. You should have full reign to show your right wing, reactionary, blinkered, fake news/trump-inspired, myopic view of the world! The last thing we’d want is anyone confusing you with a decent human being with the ability to view something objectively!
@Graham: excuse me I only asked if amnesty cared about Rohingya persecution of Buddhists in the West.
@Johnny Gunn: perhaps it was so perversely factually false and so hate ridden that it offended standards of decency.
@Fiona deFreyne: I don’t see that criteria in the comment policy
@Johnny Gunn: so…not denying the description of you? While your perspective is poisonous and as loosely tethered to reality as trumps hair is to his head it’s somewhat refreshing to see you own ur convictions. As for this particular post I genuinely do think, if it was as you described, it should be left up. The fact that you repeatedly equate ethic cleansing in the east with the attacks in the west of
@Graham: you sound deranged and unhinged go out and get some fresh air
@Graham:
@Johnny Gunn: hmmm…that’s an effective reply. Well done
@Graham: about as effective as your hysterical ranting about Trumps hair!
@Johnny Gunn: half a million people being burned out of their homes and you act like you’re being persecuted because of a deleted comment. How will you get through the day?
@The Bloody Nine: haha comprehension fail where did I say the violence is as a result of a deleted comment??
@Johnny Gunn: read my comment sloooowly…reeeallly sloooowly. Ask mommy if you need help.
@Johnny Gunn: twas actually quite an apt simile but good to know anyone who disagrees with you is hysterical.
@Johnny Gunn: Maybe you were repeating that lie you’ve been on about, that the Rohingya want to setup a Caliphate. You still haven’t provided evidence for that chestnut.
@Johnny Gunn: Yes there was violence from some Rohingya groups, but the response has been savage beyond all reasonable proportion. It would be like if the British Army had swept through the North burning every Catholic out of house and home and chasing them south of the border in retaliation for IRA attacks. Yes, the initial attacks should be mentioned in discussions about this topic but they come nowhere close to justifying these reprisals.
@Patrick Kearns: you won’t get it (as you know). He’ll keep on lying, knowing people will believe it.
@Ewan Euphrenza: I actually gave the British army/ira example you gave, on a related post a few days ago. I was told that because it was a different continent and time period the analogy had no credibility, and wouldn’t answer my question. These people just ignore any reason or logic, so I guess your not going to get a response
@Johnny Gunn: The journal has no obligation to publish your very obnoxious, ignorant and false assertions. Your contrarian views are particularly shocking and offensive with regard to the Rohyngya, who are being murdered and victimised in a deliberate campaign of mass ethnic cleansing and genocide.
@Johnny Gunn:
‘Tens of thousands of ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Hindus have also been driven from their homes since late August’
Obviously the guys here didn’t even bother reading the article before engaging in ridiculous ad hominems.
Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland, Rwanda, Israel/Palestine it is clear that Man is a tribal and territorial creature, perhaps those who defend mass immigration believe that something like this will not happen again in Europe, or perhaps the promoters of such a policy know exactly where it will lead to?
War is a racket – Major General Smedley D. Butler USMC
@James Connolly: Israel was created when a mass migration of European Jews fleeing the Holocaust happened, the intra-ethnic tribal conflict in NI is a result of the mass migration of Scots into Ulster 17th century also in the same time frame a mass migration of people from Ethiopia, the Tutsi’s settled in Rwanda setting the scene for one of the worlds bloodiest conflict. Dont let your ideology blind you, mass immigration seldom works out well.
So much for Buddhist inclined peoples having a serene outlook on life and their neighbours!
@gowfc@yahoo.com W:
Makes you wonder what drove Buddhists to say enough is enough.
@Remy: Really that’s your take away? No pity or empathy? Instead “well they must’ve done something really bad to bring this on themselves”?
@Graham:
Calm down there snowflake, you’ll burst a blood vessel. You do understand the history of this conflict, don’t you? Or did you suddenly gather some interest in the last few weeks. I asked a question and you jump in with an assumption, freak.
@Remy: an assumption based on what you said…should I base it on something else? And I’m not the one getting butt-hurt and insulting people who I can’t win an argument with
@gowfc@yahoo.com W:
They have even managed to turn the Buddhists homicidal.
Does this suggest possible issues with a certain religion.
@Graham: What argument? :)
@Graham:
a man minus an argument, is man minus a purpose
@Dave J: What about a man with a stupid argument based on lies…?
Hopefully this attempted genocide campaign can be brought to the earliest possible halt. It has been a horrific campaign of attempted extermination and expulsion.
It is frightening that the leader of Myanmar supposedly knows so little of what is happening in her country.
@Fiona deFreyne:
Why is it happening Fiona? It wouldn’t have anything to do with the coincidental rise in Islamic attacks on state facilities in the region now would it?
@Thought for Food: the state that refuses to acknowledge their existence?
Terrible but all the same not much fuss kicked up about all the other religions cleansed from muslim countries
Maybe the military are really still in control
@Dave O’Hanlon: The military have always been in control Sun Kyi is little more than a figurehead
@Anne Marie Devlin: If she does speak out there’s a good chance the junta will undo everything accomplished over the last few years in the country.
Given to number of comments here it appears that the Journal censorship is in full swing unless you agree with the Journal’s opinion., rather than actually knowing the real situation on the ground and the history of this conflict.
@Patrick J. O’Rourke: the comments to views ratio seems to be roughly equal to the other articles posted around the same time. Put away the tin foil hat
This won’t be the last.
Piss Nobel Prize was always Given to murderers. Yitzhak Rabin asked his Army to break Palestinian bones.
Who cares about the Rohingya they are not chosen Blondes with Blue eyes.
Je suis Charlot.
@femo: don’t forget Obama…
Communists will communist.
And that usually isn’t very pretty.
have your say