Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The first question we must ask is what is causing the increase in rents in this country. The answer is problems with supply and demand. Covid had a massive impact on supply and demand but we also have a huge issue with the cost of the materials to build houses, which is causing a problem. Rents are going up in Limerick. Ordinary people who were paying €800 a month are now being charged €1,200 and rising. The Limerick Twenty Thirty group was set up to help ease the housing crisis and is currently progressing 250 applications for planning permission in the city. It has plans to move out to addressing the situation in the county, which the Land Development Agency will not do. The latter has been set up and structured in such a way that the investment only goes to areas with a population of 30,000 or more, which only covers Limerick city. It does not help me to build houses in towns, villages and rural areas. I have to depend on the local authority for that and thank God Limerick Twenty Thirty has been set up to help. Its membership includes a former council chief executive and local councillors who were elected by the people of Limerick to help ease the crisis.

What can we do to help the situation? I have listened to all the other speakers' views in this regard. As I said, there is a problem with the cost of building materials in this country. People have to rent for longer because they cannot afford to build a house. There has been a 40% increase in the cost of materials and a similar increase in labour costs because of the shortage of skilled workers. The shortage of labour is a huge problem but apprenticeship programmes have not taken off because there has not been investment in them. We lost ten years in this regard following the crash in 2008. The infrastructure is not there to address the problems that are arising. It is next to impossible to get anything through the ports and into the country, which is leading to an add-on cost for the building and renovation of housing in the case of materials such as steel, insulation and timber. The knock-on effect of this is having a large impact across the country.

Another issue is forestry licences for tree felling. Again, the problems in this area are leading to a supply and demand issue for the housing market. The Government has not got this right yet. People cannot get the felling licences to produce the timber needed to roof, renovate and build houses. All of this is common sense but the Government is not addressing the issues. We need infrastructure, investment and the workers to provide the labour. We have none of those because the Government has failed in every respect to get the changes through that would help people. If we are to reduce rents, we need to address the supply and demand issues. To do that, we must get building materials into the country at a reasonable price.

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