Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The problem is that it just gets worse. If there was any sign that things were improving, I would give some credence to what the Minister of State said. It is not that the debate started today or yesterday or even a year ago. When I stood at the top of the Chamber in 2012 and warned that there woujld be slum conditions similar to those in Sean O'Casey's time, I remember that I was scoffed at from the Fine Gael benches. There was laughter across the Chamber because it could not possibly happen, but it is. Last week there was a newspaper report on a property in Lehaunstown. Today there is a newspaper report that a three-bedroom property with 16 bunk beds is being advertised to young women and rented out at €400 per bunk bed. The journalist who went into the place said it was absolutely squalid. We are back to tenement conditions and none of the measures proposed by the Minister of State will address the problems immediately. For example, a simple thing that could be done is, as we proposed in a motion passed by Dublin City Council, that the local authority should have the power to take and use any property which has been sitting empty for longer than six months if the owner does not signal an intention to use it. However, the city manager stated he would not implement it. I propose that he be instructed to implement the measure. It is completely unacceptable. I also propose that rents in the rent pressure zones be pinned back to affordable levels - approximately 2010 levels - as an emergency measure to make them affordable in order that everybody looking for rental property would not automatically be in a crisis, as is the case because rents are too high and HAP and rent support levels are simply not sufficient. Will the Minister of State do these things?

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