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GAZETTE
SEPTEMBER 1984
Rent Restrictions: An Ongoing
Problem
by
Sophia Carey
This article by a student on the Journalism Course at the College of Commerce, Rathmines, Dublin. has been selected for
the Law Society's Journalism Award 1984.
Students are required to write an article for a newspaper or periodica! on some matter of legal interest. The Award is made
by a Committee representative of the Law Society and the Director of the Journalism Course.
T
HE longstanding landlord/tenant conflict has
erupted into the Dail and the courts with increasing
regularity over the last three years.
Since the removal of any form of rent control in 1981
"hard luck stories" from both sides have proliferated. For
landlords, restricted rent was an intolerable injustice
which prevented them from making any form of profit,
and which forced them to allow their premises to run into
disrepair. For tenants, it could mean the difference
between an adequate lifestyle and bare subsistence.
A Í981 Supreme Court decision, declaring the 1960
Rent Restrictions Act to be unconstitutional, was the
catalyst which launched the debate to the forefront of
public attention, and put landlord and tenant at logger-
heads in various messy court cases.
The 1960 Act was one of a number of revisions to a 1923
Act which froze the rents of around 40,000 "rent-
controlled dwellings" at a post First World War level. It
was originally intended to keep rents at the same level as
when the troops left for the front.
By the 1980's, however, not only was rent restriction
still in existence, but rents had been kept at a level judged
fair almost 60 years before. In some cases, this could be as
low as £1 a week.
By making the Act a permanent feature of our legisla-
tion, governments were relieving themselves of the
necessity of providing cheap accommodation from their
own funds. "Renewing the Act was a useful thing for
government to do" says Mr. Patrick Madigan, who
successfully challenged the constitutionality of the 1960
Act. "It cost them no money, and threw housing over
onto the private sector." In effect, they were forcing
landlords to subsidise tenants.
The problems facing the present government spring
largely from their predecessors' failure to make any
allowances for the injustices facing landlords. For his
part, Mr. Madigan says that had government made an
effort to allow landlords a reasonable return on their
premises he would never have taken his action. He had,
for example, asked them to include a section allowing
reasonable rents under the Grounds Rent Bill, but had
met with refusal.
Mrs. Sarah Murphy of the Private Tenants Action
Gr oup is in agreement with Mr. Madigan on this point. If
the government had acted many years earlier, the
problems which tenants are facing would not be as acute.
"The low rents were not the fault of the tenant," she
!254
said. "The rents were controlled by decree, and no-one is
disputing their lowness. It is the sudden massive increase
which tenants object to." The removal of any form of rent
control meant that landlords were now free to charge
whatever rent they wished, and tenants could face
increases of over 300% overnight.
The government was forced to take action to protect
tenants who had, as Mr. Madigan puts it, "planted apple
trees in the garden". How could they deal with a tenant
who had expected to live out their lives in a £1 a week
home?
So far, their attempts to impose order on the situation
have resulted in failure of one sort or another. Temporary
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