Documentary highlights scale of housing crisis

Cures for the country’s housing crux have proved worse than the disease, according to a property expert, who described the shortage of homes in Galway as “shocking”.

“The reality is that in Galway, it is horrendous. It’s exactly the same as Dublin in terms of lack of supply. If you go onto Daft.ie now, you’d probably find 20 two-beds in the city. Like, 20, do you know what I mean? A few years ago there would probably be over a thousand,” said Edel O’Brien, series producer on Find me a Home on RTÉ One television.

Ms O’Brien, who filmed in Galway this summer for programme three of the third series, said the “unintended consequences” of Government interventions have made matters worse. Introducing regulations that effectively banned bedsits has increased homelessness, for example.

“You have to have a separate bathroom and separate cooking facility, which means there is no longer a rung on the ladder called a bedsit. And so it’s very, very difficult for the people who are vulnerable, who are either low waged or students, to find accommodation, which is why there are huge problems in Galway.

“Government bring in ideas and legislation to protect tenants. That was the aim. They didn’t envisage that this would happen. A whole layer of bedsits that would have been a safety net is gone. Where’s the safety net now?”

Tenants who would previously be allocated social housing, are now getting Rent Allowance or HAP (Housing Assistance Payments) to find homes in the private rental sector. This is “feeding the demand” for private rentals and “incrementally pushing up rents”.

Meanwhile, the rent caps, which limit rent rises to 4% per year in urban areas including Galway City, are also having adverse unintended consequences, she said.

“Most people out there in rent-controlled tenancies aren’t going to move, they’re going to stay put because they know that if they go up the road to a new place, it might not be bigger, it might not be better but it will be dearer. The only places that come onto Daft.ie are the places that are new, so they can charge whatever they want. People don’t understand how landlords could be leaving the market when rents are so high – it’s a goldmine, they should be raking it in.

“They don’t understand that they’re rent-capped and they’re probably selling-off because they can’t profit from current rental market values. They have what’s called historic rents. It’s not that rent controls are bad. A huge amount of tenancies are protected. But what it has done is stalled the rental market and the new supply coming in.

“Nobody is going to say ‘poor landlords’. It just doesn’t sound right. But they’re feeling a bit hard done by. And we need landlords because we don’t really have a rental sector other than the private rental sector. The rental sector that isn’t private is social housing and there isn’t enough of that,” said Ms O’Brien.

This lack of supply has led to a bear-pit competitive nature of the rental market in Galway, which is laid-bare in episode three of Find me a Home.

With rent-capped landlords exiting the market, leases are being terminated and families face eviction.

In this programme, by Waddell Media, Galway housemates for three years, Robert Landiss, Stewart Killeen and Céclie Robin, have been told that their landlord is selling an entire terrace of houses in the city including theirs.

They receive notice to quit, and are filmed searching for a new place to live.“There’s nothing out there. There just physically aren’t enough houses. People are competing big time. I won’t even say house, apartment or room, the reality is people are evening competing for the bed in the room with somebody else. That’s the competition, there physically are not enough houses,” said Robert Landiss, who described the quality of what is on the market as “shocking”.

The trio eventually did find a property but there’s a sting in the tail since the programme was filmed. They are soon going to lose their new house because their landlord has decided to sell that, too.

Speaking to the Connacht Tribune, Stewart Killeen said: “We haven’t been served notice yet. When the possible sale goes through, we’ll get 28 days’ notice then. We moved-in in June. It’s a nightmare having to leave again. It’s daunting. You definitely feel anger. It’s annoyingly ironic that the property class have so much sway in the country. It seems to be just a chronic situation. Our rent has risen in this place, and I know the prospect is that my rent is likely to go up again, which adds an extra dimension. It’s daunting and it’s dreadful but I am optimistic that we will find a place.”

• The programme is available on the RTÉ Player for three weeks.