Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The words "affordable" and "housing" rarely go together when discussing north Kildare. In north Kildare, workers are either beggaring themselves to pay extortionate rents, living at home with their parents if they are lucky, or house sharing into their 30s and 40s, with all the personal and social issues that come with that, for example, a lack of privacy and personal space, the inability to develop their own unit as couples and the inevitable delay in starting their own families. Affordable housing is not just a matter of accommodation but of how people in north Kildare are living their lives.

We constantly discuss young people and the impact of unaffordable housing on them. Their parents speak to me. No matter how much we love our kids, it can be hard going having them in the house. In case pigs are flying outside and my children are watching, I am not talking about them. Having adults of different generations - sometimes three adult generations, with babies on the way – in the same house is no way to live. Older generations are scratching their heads over the possibility of whether their children and grandchildren will be able to afford to buy houses of their own. I am talking about a home, not a property. A member of the Minister's party told me a few months ago that a tiny one-bedroom apartment in Leixlip going for a so-called discounted and affordable rent of €1,357 per month, or approximately €16,000 per year, was good value compared with New York. Do not get me wrong – Leixlip is gorgeous, is right on the border of our capital city and has a beautiful river valley running through it, but comparing a small town in north Kildare to the metropolis of New York with its nearly 9 million people shows how delusional this Government is. We are talking about homes, not properties. Homes are what make society. The market does not rule. That is the difference between the Government and Sinn Féin. The market the Government favours is killing our society.

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