Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Rents are out of control. The average cost of new rents in the State is now almost €1,700 per month, touching €3,000 per month in Dublin. The situation is getting worse and not better. Today's report from Daft.ie shows the highest increases since records began. That is an emergency. House prices are out of control. The cost of buying a house has increased by 128% since 2013. This situation is getting worse and not better. Couples who in any other generation would be living in their own homes are instead sleeping in the box rooms of their parents' houses. This is an emergency. Homelessness is out of control. There are now almost 11,000 people in emergency accommodation, the highest number ever recorded. The situation is getting worse and not better. Every month the figures are rising as men, women and children throughout the State find themselves the victims of a merciless housing market that has been carefully fostered by successive Governments. This is an emergency.

In a nutshell, we are living in the middle of a housing emergency. One of the reasons for this emergency, and among the few people who failed to recognise this, is the Minister with responsibility for housing. He tells us that things are getting betting under his watch when all the evidence tells a different story.

The Taoiseach tells us the Government's housing plan is working despite the testimonies of thousands of workers and families who tell us every day that it is failing them. The Tánaiste's helpful contribution was to tell our young people, who have no place to live, that rents might be higher in New York. The Government lacks the ambition, policies and determination to turn this emergency around or to embark on a public home-building programme on a scale that is necessary to resolve the source of the problem. In the meantime, the Government should reduce and freeze rents to give renters a break. It should face up to the vultures and cuckoo funds that have turned our housing market into a cesspit of profiteering.

We are halfway through this Government's term in office and one thing is crystal clear: we do not need a change of Taoiseach. We need a change of Government and we need it quickly if we are to prevent the loss of another generation to forced emigration due to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's failure to recognise the scale of this emergency and address it with the required measures.

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