Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The average rent in my home city of Limerick is €1,407 per month, that is if one is lucky enough to be able to find a property. Today there were nine properties available on daft.ieand two of those houses were for more than €4,000 per month. I do not know who can afford that in Limerick and there was only one house available for less than €2,000 per month so we have priced working families out of the market. They have nowhere to go because they earn too much to get social supports and the Government refused to increase the income limit so people can access social supports, whether that be council housing or HAP. There is supposed to be a review ongoing in the Department but any official I have spoken to tells me there is no review ongoing or no target date for when that will be done.

The Minister of State talked about addressing the cost of living and about the minimum wage.

The minimum wage increased by 3% this year but with inflation running at 5%, that represents a reduction in real terms. The Government has not done anything to help those on the lowest levels of pay. The extreme cost of rent and house purchase has not come out of the blue but is the result of failure after failure on the part of this Government and its predecessors. The refrain we hear most often from Government parties is that housing is not an issue that can be fixed overnight but if we stick with them, they will deliver. We have had 11 years of failure in relation to the cost of housing by these parties and it is time to realise that they cannot and will not fix this crisis which is of their own making.

Yesterday the Minister's colleagues in Fianna Fáil launched a social media attack on Sinn Féin and its housing policies that was fairly pathetic. Let us get something straight here. The Minister's colleague in government, who is a constituency colleague of mine, Deputy O'Dea, was quoted in the Sunday Times, when talking about investing in social housing and Government incentives, as saying "In this world, everybody has to make a few bob, you know". He suggested that there was money to be made, while Irish citizens were locked out of the housing and rental markets. I am sure Fianna Fáil will produce some more of its pathetic little graphics for social media to suggest that Sinn Féin is the problem when it comes to housing which is, of course, nonsense. Let us be clear on a few points. The Government has not delivered affordable homes to rent or to buy on the scale that is needed. Under this Government, rents and house prices have increased and working families are priced out of the market. The tax advantages and exemptions for investment funds were not gifted by Sinn Féin. The rich got richer and made, as Deputy O'Dea would say, more than a few bob. It was on this Government's watch that 4,900 private rental sector properties were bulk-purchased by investment funds in 2021.

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