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

The Government has trotted out a completely false narrative. Its members are all on message in saying they are the people with solutions and we are the people who are just being critical, but that is not the truth. Tomorrow we will have a Bill seeking to reduce the rents in this country to affordable levels and the Government will vote against it. That is the truth.

The truth is that 10,300 households will be really suffering over the coming weeks. Record numbers of people and their children are in emergency homeless accommodation. Some have been in it for three to three and a half years. I have raised their cases in this House. They have no prospect of getting out of the accommodation. The Government has not solved this. Meanwhile, we have 160,000 empty properties. In my area, flats and apartments in the hands of vulture funds have been sitting for three and four years. I have raised this repeatedly. What does the Government do about it? It does nothing but these investors are making a fortune just sitting on empty properties. They are making record profits. Energy companies are making record profits. Corporate profits have gone up by 300% in the past ten years. Those concerned are doing well, however. According to ICTU, housing and accommodation costs in this country are 78% higher than the EU average. Therefore, the Government should not hide behind the Ukraine war. Rents in Europe increased by 13% over a decade. In the same period they went up by 63% here. Those figures are from 2020. Now the increases in rent are more than 100%. I am referring to the past 12 years. The corporate landlords, speculators and investors are creaming it with profits while tens of thousands of people in this country can find nowhere to live or are being absolutely crushed with the costs of rent and accommodation and, on top of those, the cost of living.

This week in my office, I talked to a former postal worker who is now a pensioner. The individual is on a pension from the post office that is below the official Central Statistics Office poverty line. When he goes down to get the household benefits package, fuel allowance and telephone allowance, he is deemed to be earning too much. He is over the threshold so he gets no support in facing the cost-of-living crisis. The Minister responsible for housing and the Taoiseach promised us repeatedly this year in the Dáil that the income eligibility thresholds for social housing would be raised to stop people being hammered off the housing list. They broke that promise, and that is why I am voting to express no confidence in this Government.

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