Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Figures released to my colleague, Deputy Ó Broin, by the Residential Tenancies Board highlight how this Government is continuing to fail renters. Since August, more than 1,000 notices to quit have been issued with a significant increase in the numbers since March. The Government has failed to protect renters. The limited protections in place are just not working. The 2016 rent pressure zone legislation, which was supposed to limit rent increases to 4% per annum, has had the opposite effect.

Instead of being a deterrent to increasing rents, it is now an annual increase that is imposed on renters. I talk to renters in Clondalkin and Lucan, and right across Dublin Mid-West, who dread the annual 4% rent increase that drops in their door.

A quick look atdaft.iethis morning reaffirmed what I already knew. In my own area, for example, the average rent for a three-bed property in Lucan is €2,000 per month or higher. I will put this into the context of an annual 4% increase in rent. If a person is lucky enough to get a property for €2,000 a month in year one, in year two the rent increases to €2,080, in year three it increases to €2,163, in year four it increases to €2,250 and in year five the rent is €2,340. Therefore, in the space of five years, the rent has increased by €340 and a home that costs €2,000 per month to rent today will cost workers and families €2,340 in five years' time. That is a whopping 17% increase. It is not sustainable and is pushing workers and families who are already pinned to their collar into poverty and into homelessness. Some €340 in anyone’s language is a huge increase in a family’s outgoings.

When does this stop? When is enough enough? I have had several families contact me who are very worried about a potential 8% increase in rents this year. Inflated rents and lack of affordability is a failure not just of this Government but of successive Governments, and Deputy McAuliffe agreed his party propped up the Government in recent years. There needs to be a shift in Government policy that puts families and workers at the heart of housing policies, not sweetheart deals for vulture funds. The Minister needs to step up to the plate and put these measures in place. The Government needs to reintroduce the original ban on rent increases, notices to quit and evictions until the end of the year, which would address the potential 8% increase in rents this year.

I am the spokesperson on mental health for my party. I believe that if the Government tackled the housing situation, that would have the biggest impact on people's mental health right across this State.

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