Dáil debates

Tuesday, 12 November 2019

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions

 

2:10 pm

Photo of Donnchadh Ó LaoghaireDonnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is a daft.iereport out today. For the 14th quarter in a row, average rents have risen. The average rent in Cork is now €1,372 per month. In Dublin, it is over €2,000 per month. This rental crisis - and it is beyond question a crisis - is crushing workers and families. It is costing people €2,000 per month, which equates to €24,000 per annum, to put a roof over their heads, not to mind the cost of food, insurance or sending children to school.

It is the same story in Galway, Limerick, Waterford and anywhere else in the State. There are sky-high rents and no action. The figures do not lie. They are crippling people entirely. While they are shocking, they are more than just figures. They are the mother with two kids facing homelessness because her landlord has just hiked her rent. They are the young people desperately rifling through daft.iejust to find anything remotely affordable within commuting distance of their work. They are the couples who have no chance of saving up for a deposit on their own home. A whole generation is being locked out of every having any option of having a permanent home. People have lost hope of that. Thousands of people pay rent that in reality they cannot afford. Inevitably, other things suffer. Hard decisions are made on what bills to pay and what a family can afford to let kids participate in. People dread trying to shop for decent food on a pathetic budget.

Renters in Cork and throughout the State have been badly let down by the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil partnership Government. They have done nothing to reduce the cost of rents or to protect tenants from further rent increases. It just goes on and on. As has been noted, the reality is this is pushing more and more families closer to homelessness. There are 5,000 households on the public housing waiting list in Cork city. Homelessness figures in Cork reached 435 at the end of September. Rents in Cork city reached an all-time high, with renters having to spend 47% more than mortgage holders to live in a three-bed house. The Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil housing policy is not working. It is failing Cork and it is failing everyone else. It is time for real solutions. For a long time we heard Fianna Fáil criticising us for a lack of solutions. I am interested that for the first time, Fianna Fáil is talking about a rent freeze, something that Sinn Féin has been talking about for a long time. That is something real and actionable that the Government can do and that this side of the House has been calling for a long time. Now Fine Gael's coalition partner is calling for it. Will the Taoiseach now take the step that is clearly required to stop these runaway rents that are forcing people into poverty and homelessness? Will he give people that break and put in place a rent freeze?

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