TENANT RIGHTS DOMINATED much of the debate in the Dáil last week due to the government’s decision to lift the eviction ban – and we can expect the issue to do so again in the coming days with a Labour no confidence motion and new Sinn Féin legislation on the issue set to ramp up pressure on the coalition.
A common theme that has emerged in debates – both in Leinster House and on the airwaves – has been the ways in which Ireland compares with other European countries when it comes to protecting renters.
Speaking in the Dáil earlier this month, Social Democrats housing spokesman Cian O’Callaghan said: “Rents in Ireland are among the highest in Europe. Security for renters […] is among the lowest in Europe.”
Other opposition TDs have made similar statements in recent weeks saying that Ireland lags behind its European neighbours in the area of renters’ rights, often pointing to countries like Germany and France as positive examples.
The Government, meanwhile, has been at pains to say the housing crisis is not specific to Ireland, but that similar issues are being experienced across the continent and beyond.
During his Saint Patrick’s Day visit to the US this month, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar made exactly that point when asked about the problems with Ireland’s housing sector.
“It’s an issue that comes up when I meet with business people and potential investors. It has done for many years now, but one thing they will always acknowledge – they understand that we’re not the only country with a housing crisis.”
While it is true that house and rental prices are rising across Europe, is it also the case that Ireland is among the worst EU countries for renters, especially when it comes to evictions?
According to Lorcan Sirr, a housing policy analyst and senior lecturer at TUD:
“We’re probably just below the middle of the table, at the top of the bottom third. We have good standards but we’re not great at security of tenure.
“We’ve improved a lot over the past 15 years but we still don’t have the basics. We still have no-fault evictions, which would be alien to most other European countries.”
No-fault evictions involve tenants being forced to leave despite doing nothing wrong. Ireland, along with the UK, is an outlier in this regard when compared with other European countries.
Irish landlords have much more freedom when it comes to ousting tenants than most of their counterparts across Europe. For example, a landlord can legally evict someone if they or a family member intend to live in the property themselves.
A tenant may also be evicted if the landlord wishes to change the use of the property or carry out significant renovations. None of these were valid reasons for eviction under the recently overturned eviction ban.
Sirr gives the hypothetical example of a parent wanting to put their children up in a second home while they attend university, in which case the landlord would be within their rights to evict the occupant.
“That would be unconscionable in most other European countries,” said Sirr, who points out that while the government’s recent eviction ban may be out of keeping with the norm in this country, it is far from unusual in other EU states.
“This winter ban was a ban on no-fault evictions, which actually brought us into line with most other countries in the EU.”
One area of Ireland’s rental system that does receive praise from housing policy experts is the role of the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB), although it has been argued that the body needs more resources.
The body replaced the courts nearly 20 years ago in dealing with the majority of disputes between landlords and tenants.
Cian O’Callaghan made the point about staffing in his Dáil speech saying, “the RTB is massively understaffed and massively ineffective in dealing with complaints from landlords and tenants”.
Sirr agreed, saying: “Absolutely, they need more resources.”
However, Padraic Kenna, a law professor and housing expert at the University of Galway, said that Ireland’s RTB is an example of best practice in a European context.
“We have a unique system with the RTB because it’s quasi-judicial, it’s not a court. They have a big role, which was probably never envisaged when it was established.
“We have one of the best models for dealing with regulation of the private rental sector.”
The advantage of the RTB, according to Kenna, is the fact that it has relieved the courts of the responsibility for settling landlord-tenant disputes – although he also concedes that the organisation could do with more staff.
According to Lorcan Sirr, while no country has a perfect solution there are policy examples worth examining in a number of EU countries – especially in terms of eviction laws and rent controls.
“Every country I know has pluses and minuses to their system – there’s no system that’s perfect,” he said – offering Denmark as an example of a country with a strong policy that still has its faults.
In Denmark, if you buy a house where a tenant has been living for two years or more, you can’t evict them. The tenant simply switches the bank account they pay rent into. But this has led some landlords to try to get rid of tenants before the two-year mark is reached.
Other countries with more tenant-friendly laws include France and Germany, where legislation in recent years has sought to curb rent increases by mandating that landlords abide by average price indexes when setting rents.
In 2015, Germany passed a law introducing the Mietspiegel system, which regulates the pricing of new lets on the market. Rents cannot exceed 10% of the average price of comparable local properties under this system.
France has a similar system which governs the price setting of new rental properties based on local averages.
In a number of European countries, including Italy, Hungary, Poland and France, there are regular eviction bans in winter that are designed to prevent people becoming homeless during the coldest months of the year – a practice a number of Irish opposition TDs have brought up in Dáil debates lately.
Ireland has signed up to numerous commitments related to housing at both an EU and UN level, something Padraic Kenna of the University of Galway believes has been lost in the debate.
In addition to the most recent EU commitment to eradicate homelessness by 2030, Ireland is also party to the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) as well as the European Social Charter of the Council of Europe.
Under the ICESCR, state parties are obliged to recognise the right of every citizen to an adequate standard of living, which includes housing.
Despite the government winning the Dáil vote against ending the eviction ban last Wednesday, the arguments over tenant security and housing more generally are far from over.
Labour have scheduled a motion of no confidence in the Government with party leader Ivana Bacik saying that everyone has a right to a home and accusing the government of seeing that right as “qualified”.
And while Sinn Féin’s motion to extend the eviction ban was defeated last week, the party is now progressing with its legislation to extend the ban.
Both motions are due to come before the Dáil this week.
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