There is an old saying, "fail to prepare, prepare to fail". This legislation, with all its intentions of what the Government wants it to do, has not taken everything into account. Part of the legislation mentions short-term lets. What constitutes a short-term let? Is it a week, a month, two months or three months? The likes of Airbnb have been on about this to me and my colleague in Independent Ireland, Deputy Collins, asking us what it is. Last year we spoke about the planning permission rules for Airbnb and buildings that for the past number of years had been used as short-term lets for holidaymakers who contributed to local towns and communities. This goes partly to short-term lets but what is a short-term let? We have people who want to build their own houses. If we go to Wexford, we have people who will be looking for lettings while their houses are being retrofitted after flooding. What happens there? A problem has been caused by the Government failing to dredge the rivers, which has meant it flooded people's houses to protect different species. It could have put a plan in place to dredge the rivers in different sequences, protecting the wildlife and protecting people's homes. These same people's homes will no longer be able to get insurance because they have been flooded. The Government is coming up with a task force for this. This brings us back to the tenancy Bill and how long a property is let. How long will the houses of these people which have been flooded be out of action? If they rent a property, will they be caught in a situation whereby they might want to rent for a year but the landlord will say they cannot do this because it has to be based on the tenancy Bill? Rents will skyrocket as will the price of student accommodation. I have a family member in college. The hardest thing we had to do this year was get him accommodation. Four of us with family members who are students in Galway came together to rent a property. We had to pay for it from three months prior to the start of the college year to make sure they had a place when they were going to college because of the rental market. All I can say is that come March every auctioneer in the country will be weighed down with rental properties going up for sale. There will be rental properties going up for sale because people will say enough is enough. Every year something changes. We have some fantastic landlords but we also have some bad ones. We have fantastic people looking after people in their communities, keeping the rent low to make sure people can afford it because they are looking after the property. Now we have this Bill, which will equalise it to market value. Somebody could be charging one and a half times the price of someone else. Now they will say that as they are getting one and a half times the price of what someone else is getting, that person will have to bring their rent up to meet it. This means the person in the rental property will be paying more. It will put more pressure on the landlords because they will say their property needs to make more. The Bill states that people who have four properties or more will be locked into six-year tenancies and anybody with three properties or fewer will not. This is one thing the Bill is bringing in. What needs to be brought in here is 100% security for people. Anyone who had problem tenants had a massive problem with the RTB as people were left in the property for up to two years. This was not only private landlords as local authorities have had the same issue. A lot of people have a second home because it might have been left to them. A parent might have passed away and left them property. They might have decided they wanted to house somebody local in the area to help them and they are all being branded as landlords. From the point of view of good landlords and good tenants, we need to put in place a reward system. This system being put in place will only make rents higher. It will put the landlords who are profiteering on a massive scale at an advantage and small landlords will want to get out. All the tariffs are being put in place in a one-Bill-fits-all. Reward good people, reward good tenants and reward good landlords and then deal with the people who are doing badly.

Sentiment score: 0.03