Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

One must ask why the Minister has not used this evidence. It is available to everybody else. If he is to bring in some kind of rent restrictions, why has he not extended them to all those areas so badly affected by rent inflation? He clearly did not use the evidence in designating the areas. There is a clear argument for extending these restrictions across the country. However, he is now giving notice to landlords in those areas where there are massive levels of inflation to get a move on and get their rent increases in before the deadline he proposes, which will be sometime in February. This is a bonanza for certain landlords in certain areas. The Minister has utterly failed these counties and he should move immediately to include them in any kind of restrictions.

He should have moved this country to controlled rents a long time ago. The last Government should have done so. Rather than linking rents to the CPI, which is the natural thing to do, given the bonanza landlords have seen in recent years, all he is doing is opting for rent predictability, which is about predictability of profits and gains for landlords. This is wholly inadequate. It is another Fine Gael failure to address the dire housing situation that we have seen develop rapidly over recent years under Fine Gael's watch. Most dismaying of all is that the Minister's colleagues in Fianna Fáil should consider this somehow fit to sign up to and acceptable. Do they really think this to be the case? For goodness sake. "All talk and no action" describes Fianna Fáil in this arrangement.

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