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

Rents have soared to unaffordable levels in the decade that Fine Gael has been in power. The latest daft.iereport is a nightmare read for workers and families caught in the private rental trap. The report shows that new rents across the State increased by nearly 14% in 2022. All counties bar one saw double-digit increases. Some of these increases are frightening: County Mayo, up 21%; County Roscommon, up 20%; and County Galway, up 19.4%. The average rent now stands at a staggering €1,733 a month. Here, in Dublin, it is even worse, with tenants paying on average €2,293 per month. These are extortionate sums and there is worse to tell of. Apartments blocks are being built now where the asking rents will be even higher. Indeed, in my constituency there are three-bedroom apartments newly built where people are being asked to fork out nearly €4,000 a month in rent. That is €48,000 a year just for rent.

Meanwhile, what people are being offered for their hard-earned money is beyond a joke: €625 per month for a bunk bed in a room with three other people, which is the one I am showing the Taoiseach; €1,880 per month for a room the size of a parking space where you pull your bed down, which is the one I am now showing the Taoiseach; and €1,100 per month for a bedroom, use of the kitchen and a utility room, but the rest of the house, which is in County Kildare, is off limits, which is the one I am now showing the Taoiseach. This is soul-destroying stuff.

The rent crisis has had a devastating impact on the lives of an entire generation. People in their late 30s and 40s are stuck in house shares because they cannot afford to rent a place of their own. Young people are unable to move out of their parents' homes because they have not a chance of renting. So many are financially crippled by years of paying these rack-rents and are faced with the choice of moving back in with mam and dad or emigrating for their shot at a better life in another country. At the sharpest end of this crisis, thousands of families face losing the roof over their heads when the eviction ban expires in April. This is all happening because Government housing policy is failing.

Week after week, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael come in here and gaslight Ireland’s renters by telling them that their housing plan is working, but how they can make that claim to people who hand over the lion's share of their income on rent and who then see the rest of their income gobbled up by sky-high energy bills, childcare fees and grocery bills is beyond me.

Renting in Ireland means your life and aspirations are on hold. You wonder when the next ripoff hike is going to happen or when the landlord might tell you to get out. It is no way to live.

Léiríonn géarchéim na gcíosanna atá ag éirí níos measa teip polasaí tithíochta an Rialtais. Ní mór don Rialtas gníomhú anois chun cíosóirí a chosaint. Ciallaíonn sé sin cosc a chur ar arduithe cíosa agus cosc ar díbirt a shíneadh amach. Renters are now at breaking point and it is the job of the Government to protect them. I am asking the Taoiseach to do three things: first, to legislate urgently to ban rent increases for three years; second, to deliver a meaningful cut in rents by putting a month’s rent back to into tenants’ pocket through a refundable tax credit; and, third, to extend the ban on evictions until the end of the year.

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