Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This week's Central Statistics Office, CSO, pulse survey makes for grim reading. Some 76% of people sharing rented accommodation do not believe they will ever own their own home. Tens of thousands of people are locked out of home ownership, trapped in over-priced rental accommodation or forced to move back home with their parents, who are beside themselves with worry that their children will ever own their own home. Young couples are unable to save for a deposit because of sky-high rents, and single people are priced out of a market that only caters for two-income households. Separated and divorced people are paying maintenance and rent while trying to save a deposit of 20% for a new home. Families who lost their home after the crash are desperately trying to put an affordable roof over their heads. Every day, I and, I am sure, the Tánaiste and his Government colleagues receive calls and emails from people in these situations. These are the casualties of ten years of Fine Gael housing policy.

The Tánaiste has sat at the Cabinet table for those ten years. These stories and the hardship endured by the people I am discussing are his legacy. In 2011, when he joined the Cabinet, the average price of a new home in Dublin was €318,000. Today, it is €503,000. During Fine Gael's time in office, house prices have increased by 88% across the State and by 99% in Dublin. That is the Tánaiste's legacy. In 2011, the average cost of renting across the State was €781 per month; today, it is €1,256. That is an extra €6,000 per year on rent. In Dublin, the position is even worse. Average rents have increased from €960 per month to €1,745. That is almost €10,000 extra per year for rent for average renters. The Tánaiste's legacy is spiralling house prices and sky-high rents.

When the Tánaiste was elected leader of Fine Gael, he said he wanted to represent those who get up early in the morning to go to work. The only people I see his Government representing are big developers and big landlords, throwing around sweetheart tax deals and land deals like confetti. It has become increasingly clear that Fine Gael is not the party of hard-working people. It is a party of privilege, a party of the very well-off and a party of ever-rising housing costs. In fact, when asked about rising house prices last week, the Tánaiste suggested that things were really not as bad as the Opposition is saying and that the solution was to saddle working people with increasing levels of mortgage debt. Is he that out of touch? Does he not understand the depth of the crisis that he has created?

It is time for the Tánaiste to accept that his housing record is one of failure, that ten years of Fine Gael housing policy has made the housing crisis worse and that if he continues to repeat the mistakes of the past, things will only get harder. It is time to give renters and those seeking to own their own home a break. Will the Tánaiste now accept that the only way to deliver genuinely affordable homes for working people is to follow the advice of Sinn Féin, the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, and the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, and to double direct State capital investment in public housing, to deliver 20,000 social and affordable homes annually until this crisis is over?

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