Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for agreeing to share his time. I welcome today’s debate to discuss the opportunity of examining housing and the rental crisis impacting people right across the country. Like all Deputies, I am fully aware of the difficulties facing people trying to rent or buy a home and obviously the cost of rents is a huge issue. We are all contacted by people who are either falling behind on the rent or struggling to rent or having difficulty even finding a property to rent. In my constituency of Dún Laoghaire average rents on a two-bedroom apartment are close to some of the highest in the country. However, thankfully, as the minister has alluded to, we have 600 affordable homes being developed in Shanganagh in my constituency along with cost-rental units and a further 50 cost-rental units being developed as we speak on Enniskerry Road.

However, the rent levels are unacceptable and the Government has acknowledged this by bringing forward a suite of measures to increase the supply of homes which will drive down rents. We have seen that accidental landlords are exiting the market for various reasons and it is not a welcoming place for them. We must increase supply, not only supply for people to buy, not only supply for people to rent but we need people in the private market as well. These should be individuals rather than the large investors. Rent freezes are not a sustainable long-term solution.

I saw that in the Sinn Féin Private Members' motion, that it is some sort of panacea. That is not going to be enough. As the Minister said, we have seen that overturned in cities like Berlin. The impact on the supply has unintended consequences and I ask Sinn Féin to reconsider that.

Ireland needs at least 35,000 housing units per year to meet demographic demand. Ultimately supply is at the heart of the solution to the problem. This is why the Government allocated a record amount of funds to develop social and affordable housing. On affordable housing alone, the Government has arranged more than €135 million in direct funding and State-backed borrowing to the approved housing bodies, AHBs, to develop the supply of affordable housing.

This Government is in office ten months and has already brought forward a record number of housing and rent Bills, including the protections referred to by the Minister, and unprecedented legislation protecting renters during this Covid-19 pandemic.

More needs to be done, including further protections and reforms on taxation of institutional investors, and the Minister spoke about that yesterday when speaking about the Bill he brought before the Cabinet.

This must be introduced via legislation, not motions in the House. It is simple rhetoric for Sinn Fein to come in here and say that it has a solution when in fact it voted against the practical measures this Government has attempted to bring in. We ask for its support. All Deputies in this House want to deal with the housing crisis. We are all contacted by people everyday who are in difficult situations. It is imperative that all Deputies across the House work with the Minister to solve the housing crisis. There are tangible solutions on the table that are unprecedented, as the Minister said, and I ask all Deputies in this House to support our countermotion.

See this speech in context