Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We have listened to the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, and to the previous Minister, Deputy Noonan, for a number of years. They continued to tell us that everything would be okay. We have heard all the different measures they introduced such as the help-to-buy scheme and now giving tax breaks to landlords. The latter measure is not just supported by Fianna Fáil. It demanded that it would happen and it ensured it was written into the Finance Bill.

We have a major crisis. I have made this point time and again. The homelessness crisis lies completely at the Government's feet. Here and now in this Chamber and on Committee Stage we decide how to divvy up the resources of the State and year after year the Government has failed to invest the necessary funding for social and affordable housing. The automatic consequence of that is we have a housing crisis. As we speak here at 5 o'clock, families are walking the street. Children have been picked up from school a couple of hours ago and they have nowhere to go. They will go to their hotels tonight and in the morning they will be told to leave their rooms. A total of 4,000 children are in that situation and 10,000 people in all.

That is at the most acute end of the situation but, in addition, we have seen rents increase for 25 consecutive quarters. The Minister told us the rent caps were supposed to solve this but landlords are breaching the rent caps. The reality is that we have seen record levels of rent in this State for the past ten quarters. Each quarter set a new record in the State. We are saying the Minister must do something more imaginative. We have offered a solution in terms of rent relief, which used to exist, which was abolished by Fianna Fáil and only rolled its way out of the system last year because people were still able to avail of it up to then. We need such a solution when we have the highest level of rent in the history of the State. Rent should be refundable to all, including students. People are being charged through the nose to share a bed. That is the kind of crap that goes on. It is unbelievable what is happening to students and other renters.

Now we are in a situation where because of mismanagement we need others to come into the country to build the houses that should have been built in a proper and managed way. That will put more pressure on the housing sector which, in turn, will fuel house prices further. Somehow, those in the Government think the people are going to manage, but they are not. Therefore, we need measures such as this to be introduced, but I do not expect the Minister to introduce them because he does not believe in them. He believes the market will solve it all, but it has not done so.

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