Letters

The housing crisis – security of tenure

Legislative action

Fri Mar 24 2023 - 00:14

Sir, – In the conversation around protections for renters in recent days, one class remains almost entirely unmentioned. Those who rent a room rather than a home: house-sharers or lodgers are invisible in this discussion. With a housing crisis now stretching over a decade, it is not unusual for people in their twenties, thirties and beyond to live in such circumstances.

For most of us, our great crime in the scheme of this crisis is to be single, because who can afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment alone these days, and for those who could afford them, where are they to be found? One-bedroom apartments are, of course, frequently objected to as being for “transients”.

Aside from the indignity of being full-time workers, established in our careers, forced to live in set-ups that were previously reserved for students, we have absolutely no security of tenure. The rights afforded to renters do not apply to us. None of the new protections announced by the Government will help us.

We are the group most likely to end up on the streets should a landlord decide to sell up, and no one even mentions us. – Is mise,

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KATIE HARRINGTON,

Galway.

Sir, – While it is welcome to hear legislative changes to support tenancy purchase schemes from landlords, it is important that we apply similar principles across the board.

Therefore might the Minister for Housing include legislation that gives an option to mortgage holders to purchase a property at the preferred rate of transfer that finance companies value loan books at without any recourse to the original contract holder? – Yours, etc,

Cllr SUZANNE DOYLE,

(Fianna Fáil),

Tully,

Co Kildare.

Sir, – While there are attempts to mitigate the effects of the lifting of the eviction ban, many people will still desire to purchase a home – which will not be helped by councils outbidding them for houses which come on the market.

I pay my rent to a gift shop corporation, and my apartment is managed by an agency. The people renting in these complexes are people who might have otherwise bought houses now earmarked for cost rental by the State and will now be priced out even further, as they are competing with both cuckoo funds and councils.

I would like to suggest a new “right to buy” scheme. Just as was done with council housing in the past, why not introduce a similar right to buy for those currently residing in build to let or cuckoo fund apartment units?

The desire to leave these places can largely be fuelled by a desire to own one’s own property, and not necessarily a dissatisfaction with the physical place in which they live.

If people were granted the right to purchase the property they currently reside in from large investors, then this would take some of the pressure out of the housing market, without there necessarily being the need to build new homes. – Is mise,

COLM DOYLE,

Dublin 7.

Sir, – So the Government won the eviction ban vote handily enough. The Ceann Comhairle concluded the Dáil debate with the comment that “the amendment to the amendment is agreed to and the question now to be considered is that the Sinn Féin motion , as amended by the Government amendment,also amended, to be agreed to” (Dáil Sketch,March 23rd) .

What could be clearer than that! – Yours, etc,

TADHG McCARTHY,

Bray,

Co Wicklow.