Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach is arguing an increasingly lonely and isolated, unsustainable position. Does he not accept the view of those on the front line, including Threshold, Focus Ireland, the Simon Community, the Peter McVerry Trust and even the NESC on these matters? Are they all wrong in respect of this issue, with only the Government and Fianna Fáil in the right?

The Government is proposing an allowable rent increase that is a multiple of any index? It is eight times the consumer price index. How could that be justified? Someone paying €1,500 a month could under its plan spend an additional €19,000 in after-tax income on rent over the next three years. That is extraordinary amount, which could be devoted to alleviating household pressures. It is just not acceptable.

I refer to the notion that the only pressure zones are Dublin and Cork. The Taoiseach is famous for talking to people over the garden wall and on his travels around the country. He knows that these rental pressures exist in counties Louth, Meath, Kildare, Wicklow and Wexford and probably elsewhere too.

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