Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My last engagement on Monday before I travelled here was to meet a constituent in a fast food restaurant connected to a hostel. He had been living there for approximately 14 months. He told me of his situation and wanted support to apply for local authority housing, and advice. He has three children and faces his second Christmas in that place. Despite the fact that the owner of the hostel was willing to provide him with very good references, which he showed me, he has not been able to find anything. That is the human cost of our housing crisis. It is affecting his children. He was doing his best but I could see that his dignity and pride were deeply hurt and that it was having a significant impact on his family.

It is no great surprise to me that the ninth report of the special rapporteur on child protection published in the past couple of weeks found that Ireland is operating contrary to international law on the basis of the number of children placed in emergency accommodation. That is an indictment of the failure of successive Governments to deal with the housing crisis. It requires that we take steps to minimise whatever harm or dangers exist as regards children in such emergency accommodation, but it also requires that we deal with the housing crisis. That is not just about the building and construction of local authority housing, it is also about ensuring that this rental crisis, which is absolutely rampant in urban areas in particular at present, is tackled.

In my constituency, the rate of increase has been exceeding that of Dublin for nearly two years. It was at a rate of approximately 14.4% in the last daft.iereport and the average cost of a three-bed house in Cork city for that period was in the region of €1,087, but much higher than that in certain neighbourhoods such as Douglas, Blackrock and Mahon. In those areas, it is far in excess of that. This has meant that it is absolutely impossible to find accommodation, particularly for people on lower incomes, whether it is through HAP or anything of that nature. It is an indictment of any of the Deputies of Cork South-Central if they fail to support this important legislation that will make such a concrete difference.

People have been accused of using this to play politics. I have constituents calling to see me regularly. Often, they are people from other parts of Europe who might have been served with their notice or who are trying to find a new tenancy. They just cannot believe how poor the protections are here. They cannot believe how weak the position of the tenant is in this country. Objectively, by any standards, the protections that exist for tenants in this country are absolutely brutal and that certainly needs to be tackled. This is why I believe that not only is the rent certainty element so important, but so is the extension and strengthening of tenancies of indefinite duration. It is one step of many that need to be taken to ensure that tenants have security of tenure and feel confident that they can have some kind of security in their lives and in their tenancies.

This is absolutely essential legislation. The Government should support it. Fianna Fáil, in particular, should support it rather than shedding crocodile tears over the rental crisis. It is widely-supported legislation as well in terms of SIPTU, Mandate, the CWU, the Dublin Tenants Association and Uplift. That shows how wide the support is for legislation that will make a significant difference in halting the rampant increases in rental prices and provide some kind of security for our tenants.

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