Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Thank you very much, a Cheann Comhairle. I am a member of the first ever generation who will be worse off than our parents. This did not happen by accident. Political choices made by successive Governments have resulted in the aspirations and dreams of an entire generation being either diminished or destroyed.

Nowhere is the political betrayal of young people more evident than in the housing disaster. Skyrocketing rents and exorbitant house prices have resulted in the collapse of homeownership rates. We are now at the bottom one third of EU countries when it comes to homeownership. The Taoiseach told a recent meeting of his parliamentary party that he was alarmed to see that figure, but was he surprised? All this happened on Fine Gael's watch.

The share of 25 to 34-year-olds who own their own homes more than halved between 2004 and 2019, plummeting from 60% to just 27%. People can no longer afford to buy a home because they are spending all their money on rent. Between 2012 and early last year, rents increased by a staggering 95%, while prices in the economy increased by just 11%. Rents are still increasing; there appears to be no upper limit. The housing disaster is not just about bricks and mortar. It is about young people whose adult lives are on hold because they cannot afford to move out of their childhood bedrooms. It is about couples postponing having a family because they cannot find affordable housing. It is about the stress and anxiety that causes once happy relationships to break down. It is about a lack of hope. It is about despair and fear for the future that your life will be permanently on hold, that you could be served an eviction notice at any moment and that you will never be able to afford to do what your own parents did on just one income - own a modest home.

We know the housing disaster is a social catastrophe and it is now threatening our economy too. Today, Chambers Ireland warned that the housing disaster is the biggest threat facing small and medium businesses. It said that multinationals are considering buying up entire housing estates. An economy cannot function when workers cannot afford to buy or rent a home, and neither can a society.

Fine Gael has been in government for almost my entire adult life. The Taoiseach's party first promised to address what was a housing crisis in 2014. Nine years later, it is an unprecedented housing disaster. Promises have been broken, targets have not been met and lives are being ruined as a result.

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