Housing situation needs to be tackled as a matter of urgency
On the other hand, extra regulations are needed to curb the activities of greed-crazed individuals who control multiple apartments or houses and have breached the bounds of decency by imposing astronomical rent reviews on tenants.
This new type of legislation could be based on the number of properties held by an individual or a company.
Such an approach should serve to curb unfair practices. Exemptions for small- scale landlords/landladies could be incorporated into the new regulations.
The activities of vulture fund conglomerates who are serving notice on fully paid up tenants deserves distinctive legislation as well.
These people are not being treated in a fair and equitable manner.
Separate consideration must also be given to tenants who have not the means to pay their rent. We do not want to see the American choice of ‘truck ‘or ‘curb’ being offered to defaulters.
‘Truck’ results in house contents being loaded into a truck and stored in a warehouse where a monthly fee is chargeable, while ‘curb’ means that goods are thrown on to the pavement regardless of weather conditions according to Matthew Desmond in his book titled Eviction. Depictions of such practices differ little from Irish post-Famine images.
The lack of appropriate housing for tenants is undoubtedly an escalating problem in Ireland.
The safety net of rent supplement or hotel accommodation is unsatisfactory and expensive.
Matthew Desmond maintains that not only is housing insecurity discriminatory but it can also lead to increased obesity, unemployment, and crime rates.
The Irish problem has to be tackled as a matter of urgency in any case.
Perhaps some of the autocratic and exacting planning restrictions and fees could be modified in order to speed-up the process of building state funded or local authority houses.
Existing regulations are undoubtedly impairing progress.
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