Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We need to raise the roof. I am not the first Deputy to repeat the following figures: a 15% increase in rents, a 22% increase in house prices and a 19% increase in homelessness. We have all probably taken a look at Daft. Across Louth, there are 18 houses for rent. In Dundalk, the corresponding figure is nine.

Anecdotally, in relation to issues I try to deal with, a number of my party's councillors on a day-to-day basis are engaging with people and trying to find solutions. Of course, we use everything available, including the housing assistance payment, HAP. We are waiting for the 35% and the other changes, that the Minister is talking about, to happen as soon as possible because that will get us some time until this fixes but we know we are all operating in a dysfunctional system that will not get any better until we deal with the supply issue, . It is exactly as Deputy Mairéad Farrell said. It is getting worse. Every time we deal with this issues, more people come in to us. People who never would have come in with regard to housing issues are now coming in. They are finding themselves in absolutely dreadful situations.

I have spoken specifically to the Minister about anomalies in relation to HAP and how people who should be able to get a payment cannot get it. We need to introduce some element of flexibility or we will only put more people into homelessness.

It goes without saying that we must do the basics. We must protect renters. We did some of these pieces of work during the pandemic. It is not beyond the realm of possibility to do so again. We know that we will only do real business when the State engages fully and we look at figures, such as the need to deliver at least 20,000 social and affordable homes per year, including cost rental. The fact is, if one talks to Mr. Tom Parlon and others from the Construction Industry Federation, CIF, they say they are solution-focused if they have targets that they will do all in their power to deliver. It cannot be beyond the realm of possibility to do what has been done previously. We have no choice. We must deliver because we are failing everybody.

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