I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I am proud to introduce this Bill on behalf of People Before Profit. The purpose of the Bill is to make it mandatory for private rented accommodation to achieve a minimum B2 building energy rating, BER, standard by the end of 2030. A phase-in period is allowed in the legislation in order landlords can incrementally upgrade their properties if they wish to a minimum D2 BER by the end of 2026 and a minimum C1 BER by the end of 2028. Limited exceptions are provided for BER-exempt properties. The Bill includes important provisions that prohibit retrofitting from being used as a ground to terminate tenancies or to increase rents. These would both be banned under the Bill to ensure that no tenant would be evicted or have their rent increased as a result of retrofitting. It is crucial to draw a line in the sand on this now in order to prevent renovictions being used by landlords to drive up rents as has happened in some other countries. I thank the Irish Green Building Council for initially suggesting this idea and Friends of the Earth, who have been supportive and active on this issue and organised an eye-catching event in support of the Bill outside Leinster House earlier on what is an appropriately cold day, showing what the reality is for many renters in our country. I also thank Diana in my office for doing a lot of the work on the Bill. Friends of the Earth will be emailing TDs to ask them to support this Bill. The reason this Private Member's Bill is necessary is because the Government has failed to implement its commitment in Housing for All to the effect that "A minimum BER for private rental property will be introduced, where feasible, from 2025." This failure is not some oversight on the part of the Government; it is part of a deliberate policy of reneging on and abandoning previous commitments in relation to the climate and the cost of living. Evidence for this is the fact that no revised version of that promise appears in the new housing plan. Retrofitting is often, and correctly, portrayed as an environmental measure, but its most immediate impact is to dramatically improve people’s comfort, quality of life and health by making their homes warm and cosy. We are now into the first real cold snap of the winter. Hundreds of thousands of families across the country who are renting from private landlords are facing a bitter choice between paying a fortune to heat poorly insulated homes and cutting back on other essentials like food or suffering in the cold for months, wearing coats, hats and gloves indoors and going to bed early in order that they can get under the covers. I looked back through my emails of what renters have sent me about this issue. I will give some examples of what ordinary people are going in winter in one of the richest countries in the world: I am currently in rental property covered by homeless hap...I’ve got two small kids my first born is 2 and half and he suffers with asthma and bronchitis, my second born is 4 months and suffers with bronchitis too the property I’m living in is not suitable to be living in with two small kids there’s mold all in the bathroom in the sitting room and in my little boys room it’s also damp I've done everything you can think of to get rid of it and it keeps coming back there’s very poor ventilation and the house is so cold even if I have the heating on my gas bill is costing me a fortune. I am constantly back and forth in the doctors spending a fortune on antibiotics for myself and my two boys I’ve been in contact with the landlord I've tried everything but no one seems to be listening or wanting to help I’m at a loss at this point...being in this property and seeing my boys so sick is really putting a strain on my mental health and knowing nothing is being done is really exhausting. Another tenants writes: I moved in two years ago, and the letting agents/landlord, have been ignoring all the issues since then. I have had a revolving door of contractors through, (probably at least once a month, sometimes four or five) but nothing ever actually gets done. I have paid for my own report to be done, and there’s 33% moisture in the walls. I've been told that “the landlord has no money”; “the water gathering on the roof is normal”; “he has 30 properties that are in the same condition, we need to get to all of them first”. I find it a bit concerning that this seems to be an issue across his whole portfolio! ... I cannot keep up with the bills, as there constantly needs to be fans and heating running. Something has got to give. I can't go on living like this. It's all too much. I am embarrassed of my living conditions, even though they are not my fault. I cannot have visitors over. I feel very isolated, and this is not a home, it’s a shelter. This is in distinct contravention to my right to dignity. A third renter states: I’m currently renting from an inattentive landlord. There's a list of constant problems due to the dated property which I’m left fixing myself. My eldest suffers from asthma and is constantly sick from the worsening mould all over especially bedrooms. My mental health and anxiety is at an all time high due to living conditions A fourth renter writes that she has been “recently diagnosed with sarcoidosis, a lung disease that can be aggravated by damp and mouldy environments.” That is just the tip of the iceberg of the misery caused by living in poorly insulated homes with no minimum BER standards. Ireland has one of the highest rates of excess winter deaths in the European Union because people cannot afford to properly heat their homes. We know that children living in cold homes are more than twice as likely to suffer from respiratory problems like asthma. The private rented sector is much worse for this than owner-occupied homes because landlords do not have to live in the conditions they expect tenants to put up with. Four in five rented dwellings have a BER below B. Around 45,000 have very low energy efficiency ratings of E, F or G. Another 24% have D ratings. It is even worse for HAP properties, which have the lowest energy ratings of all. Half of them have BER ratings of D, E, F or G. According to the CSO, more than one in five renters has had to go without heating. This compares with 6% of people who live in owner-occupied housing. It is due to a combination of the sky-high cost of rent, the low energy efficiency of rented properties and the fact that tenants on average are much poorer than homeowners and are forced to pay much more to heat their homes. In the year 2025, it is simply unacceptable that landlords are charging people extortionate rents to live in substandard conditions dangerous to their health. It is even more outrageous that the State is standing over that by subsidising these slumlords through HAP. It is also unacceptable that this human misery comes at such a high environmental cost. It does not just affect tenants; it is driving up carbon emissions and overheating the only planet we all have to live on. Retrofitting the private rented sector would benefit everyone. The Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment, Darragh O'Brien, is over in Brazil at COP30 as we speak. Yesterday, he told RTÉ "We are heading above that to 2.3 or 2.5 degrees. That would be disastrous and maybe irreversible." He said, "Ireland and other countries have shown how we can start to transition out of fossil fuels. We are doing it. But to set the roadmap for a fair, equitable and just transition while phasing out fossil usage is critical if we're to try to bridge that gap." If he means that, how does reneging on the Government's commitment to bring in a minimum BER standard for the private rented sector in 2025 fit into that roadmap? It does not. It is just rhetoric to cover over retreat from any commitment to our legally binding climate targets. Every day that is wasted on this is a day longer of wastefully burning fossil fuels to heat draughty, poorly insulated homes. To avoid catastrophic global heating in our lifetime, we urgently need to phase out fossil fuels and switch to 100% renewable energy to power all of our energy needs, including heating, and we need to reduce our energy usage at the same time. Retrofitting is one of the few policy measures that ticks both of those boxes simultaneously. It is a no-brainer environmentally and a no-brainer from a just transition perspective. Renters collectively would save over €500 million a year on their energy bills if their homes were retrofitted to a B2 standard. According to the Government’s new national energy affordability task force, retrofitting saves each individual household between €750 and €1,120 a year. The only reason it is not happening is because tenants are the ones who would benefit and landlords are the ones who would have to pay. An ESRI report earlier this year estimated it would cost between €7 billion and €8 billion to retrofit private rented properties to a B2 standard. This was portrayed as unaffordable for landlords by comparing small landlords' assets with retrofitting costs. It goes without saying that corporate landlords and big landlords with multiple properties and hundreds of thousands of euros a year rolling in in rents can easily afford to retrofit. What the ESRI report left out was any calculation of the grants and tax breaks already available to landlords for retrofitting. It was really an incredible exercise in propaganda that was seized on by landlord lobby groups to say they could never afford to retrofit, but if we look at the grants and tax breaks available, we find that the finance gap for landlords is far smaller than the headline figures. Landlords are entitled to the same retrofitting grants as owner-occupiers so they can get half the cost of a deep retrofit paid for by the State and 80% of the cost of attic and cavity wall insulation. On top of that, retrofitting expenses are tax deductible for landlords at the higher rate of tax up to a maximum of €10,000 each for two properties. According to the ESRI, the typical financing gap for small landlords of a €25,000 retrofit - their savings less the cost, excluding all the grants and tax breaks they are entitled to - is €14,000. Once we include all the grants and tax breaks, that gap is gone. If landlords do not want to use their savings to pay for retrofitting, low-cost loans are available and the interest on that is tax deductible too. Landlords also benefit financially from retrofitting because it permanently increases the value of their property. Yet despite all this, too many landlords just cannot be bothered to retrofit even though they have the resources to do it and even though it is in their long-term financial interest. That is because landlording is a passive unearned income stream. Landlords own an asset and count the cash that rolls in from it. They are not used to having to do anything to earn that income, so organising a retrofit seems onerous to many of them even if it means that their tenants will have warm homes and save a bunch of money and even it is the right thing to do from the point of view of our climate. I have no doubt that goes for many of the landlord TDs sitting in this Dáil. It would be interesting to know how many of them have retrofitted their properties, including the big landlord TDs and Ministers like Robert Troy, Seán Canney and Michael Healy-Rae. They negotiated the programme for Government and left any minimum BER standard out of it. Retrofitting is something a lot of landlords will not do unless they are forced. That is what we need to do. That is what this Bill does by legislating for a minimum B2 standard by 2030, the same date by which we are legally bound to reduce our overall greenhouse gas emissions by 51%. If a landlord still does not want to retrofit after all the grants and the tax breaks, he or she can sell the property with the tenant in situ to someone who will. We think that should be the local authority, which can convert the property into public, social or affordable housing. This should go along with a mass programme of councils buying up HAP properties and retrofitting them. It would be transformative not only for the living standards of thousands of the lowest income families across the State but for reaching our legally binding climate targets. The State should properly fund councils to retrofit council housing stock rapidly, not at the snail's space that is currently taking place. It cannot be done in this Bill because it would cost the State money and we are not allowed to introduce Bills that would do that. It is no use continuing to target retrofitting grants at better-off homeowners like the Government has done to date. Most of the worst insulated, leakiest and coldest homes are either in the private rented sector or are social housing. That is where the focus of retrofitting should be between now and 2030. It is where the maximum benefit is for quality of life, for health, for the climate and for people's pockets. I eagerly await hearing what the Government is going to do in terms of this Bill. I hope it will not oppose it but we will see.

Sentiment score: 0.03

I thank Deputies Ó Broin, Hearne and O'Gorman for their support and speeches. I am obviously very disappointed, not shocked, given the oral responses we have had over the last couple of weeks, by the Government's response. The Minister of State says that he agrees with the aim that renters should not be living in cold, damp, mouldy accommodation but he does not agree that this is the way to do it. Let us look at the reality of the Government's policy position and how it has moved. The Government has gone from a position in Housing for All where the Government, not us or the Irish Green Building Council, said its position was that a minimum BER for private rental property would be introduced, where feasible, from 2025. We are almost at the end of 2025. Fast forward to the launch of the new housing plan, it was repeated on multiple occasions by the Minister that the Government would examine policy measures to incentivise increased energy efficiency in the private rental market. It is meaningless to state it will examine policy measures to incentivise. The Government is talking about throwing in a few more carrots when the problem is we need to regulate. We need to enforce minimum standards. Whatever about the Minister of State personally, presumably he does not like the fact that one in three people living in rented accommodation are in forced deprivation. Presumably, he does like the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are going to bed cold tonight, in poor standards of accommodation, in both the State and private rented sectors. Presumably, he does not like any of that, but I do not think the Government cares. This is a landlord's Government. We read the housing plan and see the agenda that is being pushed over the past year to accelerate increases in rents and make rents go higher and faster. We hear all the talk of closing the viability gap but profits of €50,000 a year are already being made for every property that is developed. There are VAT cuts that hand over €300 million to, in this case, developers. This is a Government that represents those who profit from the housing crisis, the big developers and the big landlords, and not those who suffer from it. In this case, renters, who are disproportionately poorer and on lower incomes than people who own their own homes, who are disproportionately colder and who disproportionately have health issues, are being sacrificed and the climate is being sacrificed. I know the Minister of State personally cares about the climate, but going back to look at what Darragh O'Brien said, it is clear that the Government has abandoned any real commitment. I have had two engagements in the last couple of weeks with Micheál Martin, post his speech at COP, to say this is a great idea and he might consider doing some of this telling the truth stuff, and following the science and leading and all of that, but the Government is not interested in it at all. It is one thing to say it in Brazil, but not when he comes home. These are no-brain ideas. These are simple ideas that improve people's lives. Ideas that do not make people's lives harder, but improve their lives radically and reduce emissions, are now off the table because they would involve some costs for landlords. Again, the Minister of State and the ESRI are overstating the costs because of the grants and so on that are available. The impact on the environment is very serious here. Buildings are directly responsible for 40% of energy usage. Operational emissions from the residential sector account for 10% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. The Government refuses to do anything in terms of agriculture, big tech and data centres, and is doing very little on public transport. Here is something it could do to improve people's lives in a significant way, make people feel warmer and bring down their energy bills, but it refuses to do this as well. Again and again it is the vested interests at the top that the Government refuses to deal with. The substantial argument the Minister of State makes is that of unintended consequences in that rents will go up and we will make people homeless. He said in his opening speech we would have to increase capacity in the homeless sector. That would only happen if the Government took political choices. Every time we talk about anything to do with the private rental sector, the Government acts as if we should not do anything to impact landlords, who are making record profits because rents have tripled in the past ten years. That money has gone from the pockets of renters, taxpayers and the State into the pockets of landlords. It is clear they are doing very well, but we cannot do anything that will impact them because they might exit the market. The impression is given that these people will take the private rented accommodation that they own, pack it up brick by brick, put it in their backpack and fly away. They cannot take their properties away. These are immovable assets. They cannot reduce our housing stock if the State says it will buy it. If landlords want to get out of the private rented sector - fine, the State will buy it and increase the housing stock. Landlords get to get out, which is fine, the tenant gets security of tenure with the State and the State increases its housing stock. That is a win-win-win we should be doing. It is purely a policy choice to say that if we set minimum BER standards, that will have a negative impact on the rental market. It will not if the State steps in and says it will have a properly funded tenant in situ scheme and will buy these properties if landlords want to exit as a consequence. On the more detailed issues that have been raised, the only detailed point made is the question of timing and whether this is too much, too fast or whatever. That is precisely the kind of thing we could discuss at committee. We first launched this a year ago and time is ticking on. If that were the Government's real objection, that is a discussion we would be open to. It could be discussed at committee and there could be amendments to make it slightly slower, but hiding behind the Opposition on those grounds is the reality that the Government is opposed to any minimum BER standards whatsoever. The general direction of travel is for the Government to lower standards in the rental sector and not to increase them. It is saying we will have smaller, poorer accommodation for renters. Again, it is renters and low-income people who are asked to pay the price for the viability gap and for incentivising more landlords. All of that is just code for allowing them to make more profit. I will return to the basic point, which Rory Hearne made well, about this having real costs for individuals and for our society. The health costs are immense. A lot of people are living in very mouldy accommodation. We had a huge issue in Tallaght with a housing development that was an AHB. When you went in, there was mould everywhere. It is horrendous that people have to live in such circumstances. Lots of people have a room in their apartment they have basically abandoned because the mould has won in that area and they have had to retreat out of it. The health impact of that stuff is enormous and the Government is basically saying it will not do anything about it. It will consider offering a few more carrots to landlords, but if landlords choose not to take up those carrots it will not do anything about it. A huge number of people are living in energy poverty. That is going to get worse because the cost-of-living crisis has not gone away. The bills have not come down but continue to rise. Hundreds of thousands of people are in arrears on their gas and electricity bills. Instead of taking an easy win and doing something for all these people in the private rented sector, and then doing the same with the State's housing stock, the Government is refusing to do it because it would be some sort of imposition on landlords. The basic point is you can throw all the carrots you like at landlords, but there is definitely a whole group of landlords who just want the money to roll in. They do not want to do anything or actually have to do any work. That is a fundamental problem. We have to either compel those landlords to do work to ensure their tenants get to live in a basic standard of decent-quality accommodation or, if they are not willing to do it, there is no problem, but they then do not belong in this business and the State will buy the property off them and provide appropriate accommodation. Members should expect to get lots of emails over the coming days to encourage people to vote in favour of this Bill.

Sentiment score: 0.08