Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The infrastructure is being funded by the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, which is funded by the taxpayer. That is an important point to note. The development, although late, is, of course, welcome. The point I am making about the northern port access route is that it will lead to the development of 5,000 additional homes on the north side of Drogheda. Those homes are desperately needed. We all talk about our own direct experience, which is important. My experience is fundamentally about housing. My clinics on a Monday and Friday are dominated by the question of housing. While I am not there from Tuesday to Thursday, my office manager deals with housing all the time. The issue of housing comes up consistently, as all Deputies in Louth and across this Chamber will know.

The situation in my own home town is quite revealing. Ireland's largest town, Drogheda, saw one social home allocated in January. Only one social home was allocated for a town of 50,000 people and with a hinterland of 30,000 to 40,000 people. That is an area equivalent to the size of Waterford or Galway, and only one social home was allocated to the town in January. That is a reflection of where we are at. The waiting time for people to access a social home in Drogheda is 12 to 13 years. The waiting time is sightly shorter outside that area because the Drogheda area is where the real pressure is being experienced. That is not to downplay the experiences of people in areas such as Ardee and Dundalk but the problem of waiting times in my own immediate area is much more acute.

I looked at the residences available to rent on daft.iebefore I came into the Chamber. Seven properties are available to rent in the town of Drogheda. One, for example, is a former council home on the south side of the town. It is a three-bedroom house with one bathroom and is going for €1,700 per month. That is an extraordinary amount of money. I am sure it is a perfectly fine property, but that price reflects the state of the market at the moment.

We know that an eviction ban is not a silver bullet. We are very clear on that but it absolutely needs to happen as a matter of urgency for the reasons I have pointed out. There are only seven properties available to rent in my own hometown. We can imagine the situation people who are evicted on the grounds of sale would find themselves in if they have not been on the council housing waiting list long enough. The supply simply is not there so they would be unable to find anything and would be left in a desperate situation. They would then arrive at the door of the local authority to access expensive emergency housing.

The reality is that the conditions that drove the belated decision to introduce the winter eviction ban in the first place still remain. I believe in introducing evidence-based policy. All of the evidence as to why we needed an eviction ban for winter and early spring was there and those conditions remain the same. Inflation still remains high. The cost of rent also remains high in many areas of the country, including my own, where it has increased by 10% to 15% over the last 12 months. There is a need to put the need to extend this ban into context. The properties simply are not there and those that are there are unaffordable.

Yesterday, the Taoiseach told my colleague, the Labour Party leader, Deputy Bacik, that a review is under way. That review has to inform Government's next steps. I will repeat my party's calls for that review to include the continued evolution of the tenant in situscheme. As an emergency measure, this scheme has been quite successful but it has been applied inconsistently across the country. To refer to my experience with my own local authority, I have been organising opportunities for individual property owners who are doing their best to support their tenants to engage with the local authority and to get a deal done on tenant in situarrangements. The process is very slow, however. That scheme needs to be applied more consistently. There is absolutely no doubt about that. It is a successful scheme that can continue to work well but it needs to be improved.

I again congratulate and express my gratitude to my colleagues in People Before Profit for developing not only a motion, but legislation that will provide a robust legal framework. Rather than piecemeal interventions, they have provided legislation that would provide a framework and legal guidance as to the introduction of eviction bans in the future, if required. That makes the approach to this whole issue much more constitutionally robust because we know there is debate as to the constitutionality of ongoing eviction bans. We believe the current ban is valid and robust and that it should be permissible for it to be extended because of the emergency we are in and because the conditions still exist.

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