Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

You are very welcome. People woke up this morning to the latest Daft.ie rental report. It confirms what everyone knows. The report shows the biggest hike in new rents since records began - a staggering surge of 14% in one year. It is a new, grim record achieved on the watch of the Taoiseach's Government. What does this mean for hard-pressed renters? Across the State it means an average monthly rent of over €1,600. In the Taoiseach's neck of the woods, renters in Cork city will fork out over €1,700 a month. Get this - in this city, Dublin, it means paying an average monthly rent of €2,258, or a staggering €28,000 a year. Has the Taoiseach read this report? It is just off the wall. Who can afford to pay these insane amounts of money? The answer is very few. Very soon, only the very well-off will be able to live in our cities.

The teaching unions today issued a statement. They say our education system is at risk because schools are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit teachers because of this housing crisis. Working people cannot afford to rent. Working people cannot afford to buy. Social housing delivery is nowhere near what is needed. While this situation worsens, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, who is completely out of his depth, says we do not have a housing emergency and the Tánaiste wrongly tells young people that the grass is not greener and they will not find lower rents abroad. In fact, they will. The Taoiseach comes in here every week and tells us the Government's housing policy is working.

Well, it is not. The housing policy of this Government should be about delivery, but instead we get denial, delusion and desperation. The record rent hike was entirely foreseeable. The writing was on the wall. We told the Government the credit for renters included in its budget was not enough. We told the Government that to really protect renters it also needed to ban rent increases. Each time the Government's answer was "No".

We also repeatedly warned the Taoiseach that the Government's targets for the delivery of cost rental homes are too low, and it is not even meeting those low targets. Now, we hear that commencement rates for housing construction have dropped significantly, putting housing targets for next year in real jeopardy. If this was not bad enough, a Government memo has confirmed a housing underspend of almost half a billion euro in the middle of Ireland's worst ever housing crisis. It is scandalous.

Faoin Rialtas seo, tá an t-ardú cíosa is mó riamh againn ach fós deireann an tAire, an Teachta Darragh O’Brien, nach bhfuil éigeandáil tithíochta againn. Tá sé in am i gcomhair gnímh. Caithfidh an Rialtas cosc a chur ar arduithe cíosa ar feadh trí bliana.

The Taoiseach says housing is the number one priority for this Government, but the crisis in people's lives puts that claim to shame. The Government acts as if rip-off rents are a figment of people’s imagination. Now the chickens of its inaction have come home to roost and it is renters who pay a heavy price. What is the Taoiseach's answer to renters across Ireland who are fleeced by these outrageous rent hikes? Does this record rent increase now convince him that we do, in fact, have a housing emergency? Will he finally do what is necessary and ban rent increases for three years?

See this speech in context