Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend Deputy Ó Broin and the rest of my party on allowing me the parliamentary time to debate this important motion on affordable housing. We know the cost-rental and affordable purchase targets were missed by 60% last year. In fact, no affordable homes were built in my home county of Wexford. Time and again, we have seen young people's hopes dashed against the backdrop of constantly high rents, averaging €1,155 per month in my county. This amount is unaffordable to a single person or young couple, especially those on the average industrial wage. The increase of 5% in new builds in the first quarter of the year has placed a further barrier on homeownership. The sad fact is that 40% of people in their 30s are living with their parents in their family homes, with vulture funds and large corporations hoovering up homes as soon as they are at blueprint stage. This is why we need to build affordable and social homes that citizens can afford to buy or rent.

Housing is the most important issue in the State. It is heartrending to see our young people bereft of any hope of home ownership, with our finest and best becoming another part of the bloody flight of the earls. The young people we need to progress and develop our nation are leaving because they have no hope of ever getting on the property ladder. This drain on our most valuable social capital must be stopped.

Under Sinn Féin will be delivered the biggest number of public housing, cost-rental and affordable leasehold purchase homes ever seen in this State. We need to change the Government's direction and its obsession with the so-called free market and the idea that private investors will save its housing plan. They only way this will be changed is by a general election and a Sinn Féin Government.

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