Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Government has now signed off on its cost-of-living package. Sinn Féin has argued strongly for a spring bonus and we welcome these additional support payments to protect vulnerable people. High energy costs, food prices and increases to come in fuel costs will mean workers and families will remain under pressure.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how the three men leading Government, after spending two months in talks, could produce a package which is silent on housing. We know that extortionate housing costs are at the very heart of this crisis and yet there is nothing here for renters. These are workers and families who are fleeced by hike after hike, paying out the lion's share of their income on rent. There is nothing here for mortgage holders either. Battered by a barrage of interest rate increases, they are forced to pay hundreds of euro more in mortgage repayments and there is still more to come. The pressure is enormous.

Many renters and mortgage holders are wondering how much more they can take and are hanging on by a thread and yet, it seems, they did not even cross the Government's mind, when it put this package together.

So many of our young people are forced out of Ireland because they cannot afford a roof over their heads. They have lost hope of a good life at home because Government consistently fails to see the bigger picture on the issues affecting their lives. They watch the Government fiddle around the edges but never showing any real ambition to fix housing.

Over the weekend I spoke to one heartbroken mother whose three sons are bound for Australia. They all have good qualifications and good jobs but the extortionate cost of housing means they have no chance of building a decent future here so they have decided to go. Like so many who have already left, they worry that they will not have the chance to come back home. It is the job of the Government to fix that. Today we discuss the cost of living but we also need to talk about the cost of leaving. The cost of our young people leaving Ireland because of the housing emergency is massive. The cost and damage to society, our economy, our competitiveness, to families and to communities is a cost we cannot afford. This generation which is being forced out is brimming with talent, education, ideas but they need a Government with the determination and courage to do the big things so they can have a shot at the life they deserve. Tugann an pacáiste costais mhaireachtála a d'fhógair an Rialtas inniu neamhaird ar na costais tithíochta tubaisteacha agus tá easpa gníomhaithe ar chíosanna agus ar mhorgáistí. Níl rud ar bith don ghlún a ruaigeadh as an tír de bharr géarchéim tithíochta atá ag éirí níos measa.

In order really to get to grips with the cost of living, the Government has to deal with the extortionate cost of housing. I asked the Taoiseach last week to do three things that would help turn the tide. I am asking him again today to do these things, namely: introduce legislation to ban rent increases for three years as a matter of urgency and cut rents by putting a month's rent back into renters' pockets by means of a refundable tax credit; introduce targeted, time-bound mortgage relief to support struggling homeowners; and for those families and workers - they are many - who are terrified that they will lose their rented homes, extend the eviction ban until the end of the year.

See this speech in context