Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

This is not just a debate about rent. It is a debate about class warfare. Since Fine Gael came to power, rents have increased at a rate more than twice the rate of wage increases. In the capital, rents are up 75% since Fine Gael came to power but the minimum wage is up only 30% in the same period.

The well-paid worker has been put to the pin of his or her collar. The medium-paid worker has been put onto a rack. The key worker, such as the nurse and the teacher, has been forced out of the cities in search of cheaper rents. The young worker has been forced to stay at home with mam and dad. The low-paid worker has been priced out of the market entirely and, in quite a few cases, forced into homelessness. The landlords grow richer. Working people grow poorer.

I mentioned on my Facebook page today that I would be speaking in this debate tonight. The most common comment was that the motion does not go far enough, that this should have been done five years ago, and that a rent freeze now would still leave them locked out of the market. Do not get me wrong, I will be supporting this motion. A rent freeze would be a step forward. If it can be done in Berlin, it can be done here too.

Everybody knows what is likely to happen next. The motion will be passed, tonight or on Thursday. It will be sent to Third Stage, to the Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government where, if it does not languish for months and months, it is likely to be blocked by one of the Government's money messages.

Thousands of people marched on 5 December to protest homelessness. It was a demonstration of real raw anger, a collective j'accuseagainst this landlords' Dáil. The marchers are correct to have no faith in the Thirty-second Dáil. They march again on 11 January. That needs to be a huge demonstration so that what was done to the political establishment in this country on water charges can be done again now on the issues of homelessness, rents and the entire housing crisis that the Government has created.

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