Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Many people are paying very high rent and simply cannot afford to save. That is one of the big issues they have. They cannot afford to save the deposit for a house. I mentioned a case in this Chamber last night of a woman in Sligo. She has a deposit of 10% because she received it from her mother. However, she has been turned down because she has to show that 3% of that deposit comes from consistent savings. Her rent increased by more than 30% in the past year. She does not have consistent savings. If she could get the mortgage to buy the property and live in it, her mortgage repayments would be around half of her present rent. Despite this, she is tied up with this red tape. The only consistent factor in all of this is that the Government continues to come with all of this red tape, all of these rules, regulations, difficulties and hurdles for people to jump when they are stressed out of their minds. People are afraid they are going to be put out on the street, yet the Government has all of these regulations that need to be met. It is simply not working and there need to be solutions. The solution is to provide housing for people and for the local authorities to buy houses and put people into them.

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