IN SEPTEMBER, SINN Féin will launch our comprehensive, detailed and fully costed alternative housing plan.
The headline housing targets in the plan are based on the independent Housing Commission’s recommendation that we need 300,000 new homes over the next five years to fix the crisis. The Commission also recommended a dramatic increase in the delivery of social and affordable homes.
To achieve this, our plan will set out the most ambitious public housing programme in the history of the state. We will fund and deliver 75,000 new social homes and 50,000 affordable homes to rent and buy to be delivered over five years.
The plan will also set out a fundamental reform of the private rental sector to ensure that renters have security, affordability and a pathway to a permanent home of their own.
For too long, Government has poorly regulated the private rental sector. The result is that it is insecure, inadequate and unaffordable for far too many people. Sinn Féin’s plan for renters will change that.
Renters need real security of tenure. This can only be achieved by amending Section 34 of the residential tenancies act.
In Government, we would remove sale of property as grounds for issuing an eviction notice. We would also set out a clearer definition of family use as grounds for termination.
Criteria such as where the property owner is at risk of homelessness, need the property for their own use after a relationship breakdown or need the property for their children attending college will be included.
Sinn Féin is also committed to ensuring that minimum standards in the private rental sector are enforced.
We will require Local Authorities to inspect 25% of all rental properties in their administrative area and certify compliance. Landlords will be legally required to display their compliance cert in the property and when they are advertising the property for rent.
The cost of the inspections will be covered by a nominal fee from the landlord and will have to be undertaken every four years. Ensuring compliance is not only good for the tenant. It also protects good landlords from those seeking to undercut them by breaking the rules.
Our plan will also see the introduction of a Deposit Protection scheme, 9 years after the legislation was first introduced. We will also remove the blanket prohibition on pets in the private rental and Approved Housing Body sectors.
Rents are simply too high and they will keep rising unless the Government intervenes. The Rent Pressure Zone system was never fit for purpose. They are not working.
In Government, Sinn Féin will introduce a three-year ban on rent increases for existing tenants, new tenancies in existing rental stock and new rental stock.
Rents in new stock will be pegged at the standard average rent for the property type, size and location. The ban on rent increases will be accompanied by a three year fully refundable renters tax credit putting a full month’s rent back into every private renter’s pocket. All renters will receive a minimum credit of €1,000.
This is in stark contrast to the Government tax credit, which for most tenants is swallowed up in annual rent increases, even within Rent Pressure Zones.
Most renters I talk to ultimately want a permanent home of their own, whether in social, affordable or privately owned homes.
Sinn Féin’s housing plan doesn’t just provide greater security, safety and affordability – we want renters to have a pathway to a permanent home of their own. This can be achieved by doubling the delivery of new build social homes to an average of 15,000 a year.
Our plan also commits to fund 6,500 tenant-in-situ acquisitions over five years for social and cost rental where a landlord is selling up. We will also explore the possibility of introducing a rent-to-own scheme on foot of research and recommendations from the Housing Agency.
Sinn Féin’s affordable homes plan will also see an average of 10,000 affordable homes delivered annually, halt to buy and half to rent. In August, we published the details of these schemes detailing how we can deliver affordable cost rental at rents below €1,000 and affordable purchase homes at prices between €250,000 and €300,000.
Our plan also aims to transform the private residential development sector. We want to put in place a range of supports to ensure that builders and developers can build more high-quality homes to purchase on the private market at lower prices.
This will support the delivery of an average of 23,000 new private homes for purchase a year, almost three times the Government’s record. This can be done by removing delays in planning, providing lower cost development finance and site servicing, and through better use of zoning, planning and master-planning. This will reduce developers’ risk and time and in turn reduce development costs and ultimately prices.
Sinn Féin also wants to support the Residential Tenancies Board. We believe that its determinations should be legally enforceable and will legislation for this.
We will also undertake a comprehensive review of the functions, resourcing, and effectiveness of the Board.
Every housing needs a private rental sector. One that works for landlords and tenants. For decades, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have become over-reliant on the private rental sector to meet the housing needs of people who want to be in social, affordable, or privately owned homes.
Sinn Féin’s plan will end this overreliance. We will ensure that the rental sector is secure, safe and more affordable and provide a pathway to social, affordable and private home ownership for those who feel those tenures best meet their needs.
Eoin Ó Broin is a Sinn Féin TD for Dublin Mid West and the party’s spokesperson for Housing, Local Government and Heritage.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say