A fresh piece of legislation that aims to clamp down on the practice of “sex for rent” was introduced to the Dáil on Wednesday.
Sinn Féin TD Eoin Ó Broin brought forward a Bill that seeks to use the Residential Tenancies Act to make it an offence for any landlord to seek an arrangement whereby sex would be exchanged for rental accommodation, as well as making it an offence for such arrangements to be advertised.
Speaking in the Dáil this afternoon, Mr Ó Broin noted a previous Bill introduced by Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan that would make it a criminal offence for landlords to seek sex in exchange for rent.
Mr Ó Broin said he supported the Social Democrats’ Bill but that the legislation he was proposing would be “a preventive measure rather than a prosecution after the fact”.
The Dublin Mid-West TD said landlords used certain language in advertisements “talking about special arrangements with the landlord”.
“As a preventive measure, I think tenants or prospective tenants who come across these adverts should be able to take the cases to the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) and have them dealt with in the non-judicial manner that is there,” he said.
[ Landlords seeking sex for rent has ‘become normalised’Opens in new window ]
Sinn Féin’s housing spokesman said that while such behaviour was probably “a very small part” of the rental sector, there wasn’t sufficient evidence in the area. He said it was very often young women or workers and migrant women who were being targeted, people “who are vulnerable and desperate to get accommodation”.
Mr Ó Broin also noted reporting by Irish Examiner journalist Ann Murphy and said that everybody on all sides of the House felt the practice was “absolutely abhorrent”.
He said the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee had committed to look at Mr O’Callaghan’s Bill and the issue of sex for rent in the overall context of a review into gender-based violence.
Mr Ó Broin said he respected the fact that the Minister was undertaking a significant body of work with the review but in the meantime it was “absolutely appropriate to utilise amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act to outlaw the practice and the advertising of such practice”.
“We use the Residential Tenancies Act, for example, to prohibit landlords charging more than a month’s rent in advance in a rental arrangement,” he added.
“If we can use it for that, surely we can use it to prescribe and prohibit the seeking of or the advertising of what is essentially coerced sex in exchange for desperate people to put a roof over their heads.”
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