First, I want to make it crystal clear that I myself only own one house and I am not in the rental business or never have been. I want to make that absolutely clear. I only own one house. I am very concerned about the six-year rule. I believe we are attempting to interfere with people's constitutional and democratic rights. People work very hard, early in the morning and late at night, to build or buy these homes and they have a constitutional right to determine how long they want to rent their house out for to tenants. Tenants and landlords need each other - one as much as the other. For the most part, 70% or 80% of landlords and tenants are getting on damn fine without any interference from us and that is a fact. It is wrong to be forcing out honest good people with maybe one house, two houses or, at the very most, three houses. It is mostly one or two around Kerry. Since this story was being mooted in the second half of last year, an amount of people have come into my clinics or are on the phone day after day shivering. They are all get notices now because these landlords - I do not like calling them landlords but that is what they are talked about as - or house owners are getting out. That is a fact. In a way, I do not blame them because they are being forced into this where they will have to rent their houses for six full years. No one knows what way the situation will change. Six years is a very long time. I will give the Minister of State two examples. There was a young fella who came home from Australia and he bought a house. He was going back to Australia and he made it clear he would be back home in Ireland in 12 months. Even though he made it clear at the outset, he did not get his house back for another year and a half. There was another person who rented out his house and found that he could not pay the bank for the house so he entered into a transaction. He sold his house. He had notice given to the tenant, who, by the way, was a consultant earning good money. The young fella needed to get his house back to pay the bank and to get out, but it took him three years to get that consultant out. He even went to the bother of locating another house for the consultant and the consultant came back and told him that his wife did not like that house so the poor fella who had his house sold was still paying the bank loan because he could not get the money from the fella that bought it since he could not give him vacant possession. That is what happened. I worry for people who meet clients like those after six years trying to get someone like that out of their houses. There were several other things that we could do. Instead, we should be dealing with the vacant houses. They are all around us. We see them every day. I have asked the Government several times to do something like it is doing for the Ukrainians, that is, pay €600 tax free to the landlords that are renting those houses to them. They are getting them and our Irish people are not getting them in Kerry. That is what I am talking about - not up the country, around the country or elsewhere. I am talking about Killarney, Tralee, Dingle, Kenmare and all those places. What is happening there is that the Ukrainians will get the house before the Irish person because there is €600 tax free being put upfront by the State for them and we are not offering that - I asked the Government to do that - for Irish people. They are our own and they are in trouble. The Government could do that. That would tempt a lot of people not to leave their houses vacant. There are so many of them there. The other problem that I have stated is the landlords are paying 50% tax, which is not fair. Other countries only allow for 30% tax, or maybe 27% or 28% tax. Regardless of what their income is or what other income they have besides the houses, that is what they would pay in income tax against whatever rent they are getting. We should be doing something like that. We have too many vacant houses around the country. We should be doing something with them. It is unbelievable to see young girls coming in to my clinic who are after getting notice to quit and it is all because of this six-year rule. I saw a girl, while I was dealing with the few that were before her last week. I looked down the hall and she was absolutely shaking - every bit of her like an ivy leaf. I am hurt by that. We could be doing better some other way. The Minister and Minister of State may have a lot of work put into this but I would like to see them doing something about equalising the story of Irish people with the Ukrainians and I would like to see them doing a lot more about the vacant houses that are all around us. There are 54 houses from the top of Kenmare town, when you go out a small bit, all the way out to Kilgarvan, through Kilgarvan village, down Glenflesk until you finish up at the Kerry Way. On the side of the road, 54 houses are vacant and no one in them. They are grand houses. People need only step onto the road where the 270 bus is passing from Killarney to Kenmare, through Kilgarvan and through Glenflesk and they could go where they like on the rural transport. The Government's plan to lock people who are renting houses into six-year tenancies is not going to work in Kerry. I say that because people are getting on to me every day. Trying to force people into six-year tenancies is not going to work. The Government also has short-term lettings in its sight. I will say to the Minister and Ministers of State that this is another wrong direction before they go any farther with it. People have been at this for 20 years and they will not rent their houses long term for all the different reasons. The Government has not been clear or been honest with these people. They are telling them to go for planning permission, that they will get planning permission and to register with Bord Fáilte, and I say to the Minister and the Ministers of State that is false. They do not need to go for planning permission when they are more than seven years at it. They have planning acquired by being in the game for seven years. I ask the Minister of State to take stock of that. I want him to know also what is happening about the tenant in situ scheme in Kerry. I have a number of times taken out officials from Kerry County Council to look at a house where the tenant has been asked to leave and their time is up. Invariably, they have told me that there is something wrong with the house and at the end of it, after a number of times doing this, they tell me they will buy no second-hand house, only a new house. It is not fair to be telling people that there is a tenant in situ scheme when it is not working in Kerry. Maybe it is working somewhere else. It is good to see three Ministers listening to us because we only have a few minutes when we come in here. This six-year rule will not work. The Department will lose more houses than it will gain. I asked the Minister and the Ministers of State about doing something for people who want to build their own house. We have this urban generated pressure clause in our planning system in Kerry that rules against people. It was supposed to prevent people from coming out the country from an urban setting but three, four or seven miles out, the people from that area cannot get permission on that. Surely to God, we should be trying to do something for people who are asking for nothing but planning permission. They will borrow the money. If they have the money, they will build the house because they want to stay near their people, and be near them at the end of their days. We are being blocked from that; it is still a blockage. I have been asking for this to be sorted out for three or four years. I asked the new Taoiseach and the new Ministers, but still, here we are, with nothing done about it. It is like the planning regulator can do what he likes, and he does not listen to the elected members of Kerry County Council. That is what has happened in Kerry. He insisted on extinguishing this area, way out from Killorglin, from Killarney, from Kenmare and from Dingle, so people could not get permission out in the countryside. That is what is happening. Those people would not be looking to build a house. They have their own houses built long ago. They were just asking for planning permission on equal terms so their septic tanks would be right, or they would have access to the national road or whatever road they are coming out onto - the local road - so they would not cause accidents. They are not looking for anything exceptional. Even where there is an existing entrance, they are disallowed. Imagine that. In fairness to Leo Varadkar, when he was Taoiseach, he said a blanket ban could not be right, even though he signed the document that means people are being stopped from coming out on national primary or national secondary roads. In 2012, it was he who signed it into law. However, he said afterwards, when he became Taoiseach, that a blanket ban was wrong. Many of those people are trying to get onto those types of roads, but they are not allowed. These are only small things. They could and should be sorted out between the Minister for housing, the planning regulator and the Taoiseach, if necessary, and all the other Ministers. They are simple things that could be sorted out. I am worried that this will not work. Trying to stop short-term letting is not fair and will not work. Those people will not go into long-term letting. Saecula saeculorum - it will not happen. They have been with Airbnb for 20, 22 and 23 years, and they can prove they have been with it for more than seven years. Again, it is wrong to tell these people, or have housing departments in different places tell them, that they have to get planning permission or retention. That is not the truth. They can get registered, and they should be allowed to get registered, without doing this. This is the crucial point. If they go for planning and they are denied, they do not have the benefit of the 21 or 22 years they have been with Airbnb after that point. They have lost it because they went for planning. If they had planning, they would not have gone for it at that stage. They have to be very careful about that. I am against these things and against this Bill as it is constituted. I will tell the truth and no back doors about it: if it is not changed, I will have to vote against this.

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