Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It seems all of us sound like a broken record regarding housing at this stage. On some level, if it were not so serious, I would say I absolutely bore myself but we all know the realities. Anybody engaging with constituents in the town of Dundalk will know the realities. I am fed up talking about the levels of rents people are dealing with. We are all aware that the rent pressure zone protections are not providing the protection required.

We all support the restriction on the deposits that can be sought from students because deposits put them under extreme pressure. This measure is necessary and needs to be implemented but, in the town of Dundalk and throughout County Louth, people are very lucky if they are paying only €1,000 per month for a regular house. Usually, it is €1,200, €1,400, €1,600 or more. Such sums are completely beyond the means of an awful lot of families. They are competing against people who come to the area to work in some of the foreign direct investment factories in Dundalk. These are all to be welcomed but the fact is that there is just not a sufficient supply. That is the problem. A large part of the Government's report card will be based on whether it addresses this.

There has been an abject failure over many years on the part of many Governments in that they moved away from building social housing and, to a degree, half expected the market would kick into place and solve all the problems. It will not come as any shock that Sinn Féin says of rentals that we need a cap across the board for three years until we return to more normal circumstances. Beyond that, we are talking about a rent rebate of around one month's rent to be paid back to renters, who are being absolutely crippled. What is happening is just not sustainable.

We all know what we need. We need council houses to be built. We need affordable mortgages and we need affordable cost rental. We probably need less conversation and more delivery. Delivery means building on public land and getting the best bang for our buck possible. It is not a case of the LDA selling to a developer and a developer making a huge profit. We all accept developers develop and build but we need to ensure we deliver for people. Everyone has mentioned the REITs and investment funds but none of these is working. We need delivery. People are being absolutely crippled. Caithfimid é seo a réitiú.

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