Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We know that there is a housing crisis, indeed a housing disaster. We know from today's ESRI report that there is a particular crisis for those who are renting and for those who are now facing the bleak prospect of having to rent at increasingly unaffordable levels right into their older age and therefore face no security of tenure, no security of accommodation. The ESRI report is just the latest in a litany of Government failure on housing. Will the Minister commit to adopting Labour's renters' rights Bill that we proposed constructively last September to provide greater security of tenure to those renting, better conditions for renters and a three-year rent freeze? Will the Government agree to look again at Senator Moynihan's proposal for a rent-to-buy scheme which would constructively seek to address the real needs of those who are facing an old age of renting in an insecure rental market where it is increasingly difficult to find anywhere to rent, let alone anywhere affordable?

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