Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Daft report showing annual rent increases of 10% for the past year demonstrates the utter failure of the Government's rent control measures. Earlier, I heard the Taoiseach ask whether Opposition Deputies had any solutions. Uniquely we have repeatedly argued for actual rent controls where we set rents. A transition year school student, Shyanne, is doing her work placement in my office this week. I asked her to see if she could find any rent control regimes anywhere else that might work here so that we could perhaps explain them to the Taoiseach. Within a few minutes, she came up with the example of France, which has just introduced a new regime of rent controls, just like the one we are proposing. Rents are now set on a district-by-district basis to ensure affordability, based on the size and the age of the property. There is a proposal from a transition year student, one that is actually being applied. Why does the Government not try that when its policies are so obviously failing?

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