Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

We are now a year into the reign of the Taoiseach. The approach to the housing crisis demonstrated by his Government perfectly encapsulates its approach generally. There are two key elements and sides to the Government of Deputy Varadkar. On one side is a vicious, neoliberal, anti-working class policy that rhetorically demonises and economically attacks working class communities while, on the other, is an extensive spin operation to hide that reality. Housing sums this up. Plan after plan has been unveiled multiple times and to much fanfare. Each one has rested upon the idea of incentivising private developers or landlords to provide housing by funnelling more money in their direction and resolutely refuses to break with neoliberal ideology by investing in building public homes on public land, which has had the consequence of the housing crisis worsening daily. The response of the Government under the Taoiseach's chief ally, the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government is not to resolve the housing crisis by reducing the number of people who are homeless through getting them into homes but instead to juke the statistics. It sums up the approach of the Government: neoliberalism on the one hand and, on the other, extensive spin to try to hide the reality of what is taking place. Unfortunately for the Government, people are living in this reality and they see right through the spin.

There are many different victims of the Government's policy of putting landlord and developer profits before people's need for housing but particular groups are more adversely affected. These include working class people, low-paid people, migrants, Travellers and women. However, I would like to focus on young people. The statistics from the most recent census are stark. In 1991, the age at which the majority of people were homeowners was 26; in 2016, it was 35. In 1991, the age at which two thirds were homeowners was 28; in 2016 that became 41. That census highlighted that more than 450,000 adults were living at home with parents as well as the massive increases in rents. These figures are significantly behind the current pace, with rent increases of approximately 60% over the past five years. Behind those statistics is a human tale of young people who are unable to access secure housing and who are living in precarious and insecure housing conditions with all the consequential impacts on physical and mental health, living conditions, working conditions and so on.

I will refer to a particular cohort of young people, which is students. Many thousands are doing their leaving certificate examinations today. In September and October, many will move on to third level education away from home. However, they are now facing a scenario where all the student accommodation under construction is being built by private developers and offered at full market rates. Student accommodation is increasingly unaffordable. There was the phenomenon of DCU students' union being forced to campaign against what was called the "Shanowen shakedown" in which the cost of student accommodation increased from €7,000 per year to €9,000 per year in one year.

A DIT campus survey shows that average rent is €541 per month for students, with many paying more. The figure last year was €508. The consequence of all of that, which DIT points to, is the phenomenon of commuter students - students travelling long distances because it makes economic sense - and all of the associated impacts in terms of their academic and college lives and the impact on the college and third level institutions as a whole. At the worst extreme, there is the growing phenomenon of students living in cars to access third level accommodation. These are the conditions into which they are being put. There is no alternative on offer.

What situation are they in after they finish third level or if, perhaps, they do not go on to third level? In most cases, because of the conditions of precarious work and low pay which the Government also encourages, they are trapped at home. They become part of that 500,000 young people who are trapped at home or perhaps, if they are lucky, they may be in a job that is paid well enough to allow them to get into the rented sector, where conditions are also precarious. They face all the consequences of the precarious nature of the private rental sector as a result of the policies pursued by the Government.

I would like to address a number of the myths that have been popularised in respect of these issues. When reference was made to forced emigration, the previous Taoiseach regularly used to talk about how young people enjoy travelling. He suggested that is why they were going abroad in the context of mass unemployment. We are now subject to a similar patronising view regarding people's living conditions and working conditions. It is suggested that young people do not mind being in precarious housing or precarious work. They are forced into this as a result of the policies of the Government and the free market system it defends. The other contemporary myth is the reports from daft.ieon rocketing rents year-on-year and month-on-month suggest are only a partial snapshot because in reality many people are accessing housing through social media and so on. Many young people are forced to access housing outside of the regular traditional channels and, because of the demand for housing, landlords do not feel the need to go through daft.ieor whatever. However, they capture the reality that rents are absolutely rocketing. That is a truth that cannot be denied and no one should attempt to hide behind that idea.

There is, however, an alternative. When we talk about social and affordable housing and public building programmes, we refer to programmes that are precisely aimed at catering for the needs of young people in their 20s and 30s and aimed at student accommodation, which should be publicly built. The mortgage and private ownership model is failing young people because capitalism, on the one hand, wants people to pay a massive price to access what should be a basic right to housing, while, on the other hand, it pays people less and gives them less for their work. The answer here is public housing.

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