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

The Minister said that we are dealing with a dysfunctional rental sector which is part of a broader dysfunctional housing market. We all accept that this will only be addressed through housing delivery. That is why Sinn Féin is talking about 20,000 units per year comprising about 12,000 social housing units delivered by councils and approved housing bodies, 4,000 affordable units and 4,000 cost-rental units. That is what we need to be looking at every year.

In terms of the rental sector, every Deputy has figures for quarter two rents from the RTB. In Louth the average rent is €1,148.32 but there are properties in Dundalk for €1,600 or €1,800 if one is lucky enough to find one. Unfortunately, elected representatives like Sinn Féin councillors spend so much of their time dealing with rental agencies and local authorities with regard to HAP. The difficulty is that HAP sets the baseline for rents. Obviously, the HAP scheme is necessary because we do not have an adequate supply of council houses but it means that families are competing with those in receipt of HAP supports. They are competing with young people or students who can band together and thus have greater spending power. They are also competing with people working in the likes of Wuxi or other FDI employers Louth is lucky enough to have. We are dealing with an utterly dysfunctional sector and many people are at their wits end. They cannot make those payments and we need a solution for them. We tabled this motion this evening because the budget does not contain proposals that will deal with these specific issues.

I welcome the fact the Minister has interacted with Louth County Council on the issues of maintenance and land banks.

That is something I will be chasing up later. We need to do something. I know the Minister has to be inundated, the same as everyone else, by people paying rents that they cannot afford. We need solutions.

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