Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Of course, the issue needs to be cured and the cure is to increase supply. There is a way of doing that quickly. We have public land and the Government should use public money to build public houses on public land. In the meanwhile, before we actually implement the cure, we need to treat the symptoms. People are in pain and that pain needs to be addressed and alleviated.

We suggested the introduction of a national cap on rents because people cannot afford existing rents. If we had a national cap on rents, we would not have the instant pressure on the next zone that is outside the current line for the rental pressure, where they can increase, as we heard in one instance, by 30% because they think that they will be next. Let us have a national rental zone and link it to something sensible such as the consumer price index or wage inflation, not to an arbitrary figure of 4% which makes it unaffordable.

We need to increase supply dramatically and we need to see dramatic action, as set out in our own proposals, to deploy €16 billion to build public and affordable houses on public land, but in the interim we need to allow people to continue to rent and not be in mortal fear of not being able to afford their rent or find they have to commute inordinate distances to keep themselves in a job.

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