Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I also thank Deputy Cian O'Callaghan and the Social Democrats for bringing the motion before the House. It gives us the opportunity to speak for the thousands of families that the failed policies of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over the years have locked out of housing.

Tipperary has witnessed a house price increase of 14.3% year on year, according to the latest daft.iereport, but it does not stop there. If a family looks to get out of the stranglehold of the rental market, the cost of a three-bedroom semi-detached house has increased by a staggering 17.7% in the past year, yet the very same county was excluded from the Government's list of 18 local authorities identified for their affordable housing programme up to 2026. Even if Tipperary was in the plan, it would have to share a grand total of €60 million with the other counties while the Minister puts €450 million in the pockets of developers.

Unaffordable housing impacts both the purchase market and the rental market. It keeps housing lists long and prolongs the uncertainty many families deal with daily.

Where are we at in Tipperary? It is becoming increasingly common in Tipperary to meet people who have no choice but to seek emergency accommodation from the local authority but it is also becoming increasingly common to hear the local authority say it is having difficulty in getting emergency accommodation for those families. They are the people who the Government is leaving without any protection. They are the families sleeping in cars, on sofas or packed into box rooms while the Minister puts money into the pockets of developers who seek to maximise their returns.

This scheme subsidies private developers up to €144,000 for apartments outside of Dublin to give them a profit margin, yet it does absolutely nothing for the people who are locked out of the market. This forces the price upwards and continues the cycle of unaffordable housing and the lack of supply and yet the Government guarantees profits for developers while turning the screw further on those it has put on the outside and who are forced to look in, helpless.

Last week, Sinn Féin called on the Government to direct the funding to this scheme and the shared equity scheme into the delivery of an average of least 4,000 genuinely affordable homes to buy each year. We would ensure that local authorities and approved housing bodies are adequately resourced to deliver affordable homes to rent and buy. That is the future, not the politics and actions of the Government, which increase housing costs and limit supply.

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