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LATE ON TUESDAY evening, the Government published the Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Covid-19) Bill 2020. Included in the Bill’s 31 sections are a series of measures affecting renters.
The emergency legislation comes as tens of thousands of low-income workers living in the private rented sector lose their jobs.
With rent payments due at the start of April tens of thousands of renters simply have no way of paying their rent. Like many people, they are extremely frightened of what the immediate future will bring.
If passed by the Oireachtas this week the Bill will prevent landlords from issuing Notices to Quit or evicting tenants for a minimum of three months. Landlords will also be prevented from increasing rents during this emergency period. All existing Notices to Quit and Residential Tenancies Board proceedings on such notices will be suspended.
The one exception will be where a landlord issued a Notice to Quit before the passing of the legislation, related to breach of contract. In such cases, the Residential Tenancies Board must have regard to the circumstances of the tenant before making a decision on whether an eviction can proceed.
The Department of Social Protection is also expected to announce a streamlined Rent Supplement payment. This is an emergency payment for people who, due to the loss of income, or their job are unable to pay their rent.
The Minister will have the power to extend these measures if the Covid-19 crisis continues.
The measures proposed will at least prevent mass evictions in the weeks ahead. The ban on rent increases and additional rent supplement payment will allow tenants to pay something towards their rent.
We needed more
While all of this is welcome it does not go far enough and there are two real concerns.
Firstly, there are many renters who do not have a tenancy agreement. They have licences or verbal agreements to rent-a-room. These, often very vulnerable tenants, must also be protected by the Bill and we will be putting forward amendments to make this happen.
Secondly, for those renters with tenancy agreements, there are growing concerns that tens of thousands of renters will accumulate substantial rent arrears debt during the emergency.
With average rents at €1200 per month statewide and €1762 in Dublin, this debt burden could be between €3000 and €6000 per renter depending on their rent levels and the length of the Covid-19 emergency.
This debt burden will not only cripple all those concerned but will also cause a real problem for the economy and the stability of the rental sector when the ban on evictions and Notices to Quit is lifted.
There is a solution. We must ensure that landlords whose tenants are unable to pay their rent get a real moratorium on their mortgages. In turn, tenants must get real rent reductions and rent waivers.
This means landlords will get some level of rent payment during the emergency period via rent supplement and the tenant will not be left with an unsustainable debt when the Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.
A huge number of these renters worked in low or modest paid jobs. There is no guarantee that they will get those jobs back or if they do that their wages will be at the level they were previously. Even if they do return to previous wage levels their income would not be able to sustain the level of debt that could accumulate.
The government must plug this gap
Renters can not be left to carry this debt burden by themselves. We need Government, banks and landlords to work with renters to ensure that the cost of this crisis is fairly shared. Rent reductions and waivers are the only way to ensure this.
Last night the Dáil debated a number of opposition amendments including a Sinn Féin proposal to deal with this rent arrears debt burden. Now, the Government must work with opposition TDs and organisations representing tenants, landlords and lenders to come up with a solution to this issue.
Our amendment explicitly calls for rent reductions and rent waivers to be considered as part of any such package. The amendment will be voted on in the Seanad later this morning. Let’s hope the Oireachtas does the right thing by hard-pressed renters.
Sinn Féin TD for Dublin Mid-West and spokesperson on Housing, Planning & Local Government.
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Amazing when applying for mortgage judt ticking one box either costs you or saves you for next 30 years.
Keep it where it is Mario – Those on Variable Mortgages like myself really are shafted otherwise – every time the ECB rate drops the AIB hikes up my Variable – ‘Sorry we have to in order to offset all those Trackers we agreed to’. I wonder will they be kind enough to keep the Variable where it is when the ECB rate does eventually rise ?!?! PS – begrudging admiration to those of you who chose Tracker Mortgages :)
Tracker mortgages were another disgraceful banking product promoted by the banks. The banks are now screwing variable rate mortgage customers with rates that are way above the ECB rate and did not reduce rates for these customers when the ECB did. What did our Government do about this, nothing as usual. The banks should be legally required to reduce rates when the ECB reduces rates and the banks should bear the loss on tracker mortgages, I would suggest it come out of their bonus pot for the next 100 years.
Why would the ECB act.
Inflation is rock bottom, growth is rock bottom, the Euro is overly strong crushing exports for many. Deflation threatens to turn into a tsunami.
Germany whistles, the ECB runs and barks and the rest of Europe can go hang.
Maybe you should leave the Eurozone, Ukraine is looking pretty good right now
Switzerland, Norway, Sweden & Denmark look all right. Britain doesn’t seem too bad either. Or are only comparisons to non-Eurozone countries currently in the throes of devastating civil wars due to community tensions, and in no way linked to their currencies, considered valid?
Before the Euro the interest rate for home loans stood at around 10% for the previous thirty years.
I wonder what the interest for punts would be now. Our problem is not the Euro it’s the political class that turned private capital losses into Government debt then continued by the next lot.
And do you think 10% was too high (ignoring interest rate spikes in the 80s)? What about in the early 2000s, would you say the low interest rates we enjoyed then were good or bad for our overheating economy?
Certainly not all of our problems have been caused by the Euro, but quite a few have and more will continue to be. The Euro was a bad idea, poorly executed. It might well work successfully down the road, but at present it is not fit for purpose. That said we’re in to deep to withdraw now, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t start putting plans in place now for an orderly succession from the EMU when the time is right.
Before the Euro, the continent of Europe had an economic future and the ability of its constituent states to adjust in line with normal business practice. That is gone and unemployment is now a serious problem.
We are now growing again, most of Europe has no meaningful growth and the EU itself predicts no strong growth this decade.
A Europe together was a great idea, ultimately destroyed by the rush to a single currency.
Britain doesn’t seem too bad either”
– U obviously have not been following UK economy closely . UK is in debt – big time .
Yes, the UK does have a very large national debt, as does the US who I believe are currently debating raising their debt ceiling to “eye watering.” But have you not noticed how little they seem to really care, or how much less of an impact these debt levels are having on their societies than our debt is having on us? Both the US & UK have been printing money hand over fist regularly for the past few years now; high debt levels are not such a big problem when default by devaluation remains an option, and it would be an (less viable) option for Ireland if we still controlled our printing presses too.
Always felt the real problem of the property boom was the banks were allowed to abandon a lending policy for home loans linked to wages. Only allowed to borrow 2and1/2 times your salary, this more or less kept home prices linked to wages.
But low interest rates hit bank cash margins and they threw money into the system by lending by value. The Gov are there to generally think society but that generation of ministers, bankers and top civil servants were complete A€&Holes in every sense, then to cap it all they refused to tell Germany, French, English, American banks that their investments can go up or down.
It over simplification but generally that’s what happened. Stupidity and cowardice.
I don’t think the problem was the Euro, the boom started when banks were allowed to stop lending linked to wages, that automatically restricts borrowing and started lending by perceived value. Then they just threw money into the system and were encouraged by a generation of ministers, bankers, regulators who were A€&holes. Then when it imploded the Developers bank had to be saved, of course the same ministers then were too cowardly to explain to French, German English and Americans investors that their investments sometimes fall as well as rise.
Low interest from the Euro is fine you can control lending other ways but our top men were too stupid and cowardly to have that difficult chat but prefer to shift the pain to the little people.
It’s a bit simple but that’s pretty much what happened.
My rate is 0.75 now – another cut would hardly make any difference. €15 tops. Keep it Mario ;)
Thanks rub it In for us variables gettin rode
I have a Tracker as my main mortgage and a small Variable as a topup. The increases on the variable loan over the past few years have pretty much wiped out the benefit of the low tracker rates. Very glad my main mortgage isn’t a variable.
Dont you think Mario looks like a Mafiosa? Would you trust a face like that?
Only his mother
Feck ya Mario!
I don’t know what a tracker mortgage is.
This is a good thing isn’t it?
It is if you have a problems with economic growth or are in zane
Who’s Zane?
Zane must be the strange world where most of those bamkers live. The rest of us are doomed to live in the real world.
Good for variable rate mortgage holders like me anyway.
“Ahh and I thought that they’d cut it by a few percent”
The ECB rate is at feckin 0.25%.
It’s virtually fcuking zero.
They’d have to go into the minuses to make any substantial decrease.
Draghi is looking a bit worse for wear.
Those big jaundiced bags under his eyes.
Ohh the virtues of money Mario.
As another poster said Fuc* You Mario
the banks will still get their money at near 0 % – and lend it out at whatever they wish .
That’s handy after they have f#cked up this and other economies .
Draghi is just another banker gangster. The idea that he has anyone’s interest at heart – except his own and banks is ridiculous . .
have your say