Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Like Deputy Quinlivan, I have people coming into my office every week who are absolutely distraught because they cannot afford to keep renting where they are currently renting, they have got a notice to quit and are trying to find somewhere else or, for whatever family reason, they have to leave their current accommodation. I am sure there are many thousands of such people who waited with bated breath for the Minister's budget speech last week, hoping for some type of rent relief measure or, at the very minimum, something to help them in their current situation. However, the Government completely ignored in its budget the hardships being felt by renters, some of whom are single people expected to pay up to €2,000 per month in my constituency. This cost is on top of the expense of feeding and clothing themselves and trying to live any sort of life.

A parent came to talk to me last week who was utterly distraught after receiving a notice to quit. She and her partner have three children and the family has lived in the area for 13 years. They have sent hundreds of emails to landlords looking for somewhere to live but have not been successful. Any three-bedroom family home they find costs up to €2,000 and more to rent. That is way out of reach for these two working people. They just cannot find anywhere to live but they must leave their current property by March 2022. Unfortunately, they are faced with going into homelessness.

The Government needs to build social and cost-rental housing. It must step up to the plate and take action to deal with this problem. The urgency of the situation has been outlined in the Chamber for weeks. Deputy Ó Broin has repeatedly set out the measures that are needed to tackle the housing crisis, including a refundable tax credit for private rental tenants that would put a month's rent back into every renter's pocket and deliver at least 4,000 affordable cost-rental homes in 2022. Unfortunately, those pleas have fallen on deaf ears. What we really need is action because people cannot take this anymore. They cannot be faced with a rental market where there is nothing available or whatever is there costs thousands of euro per month. That is just not acceptable.

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