Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Will the Tánaiste open his eyes? Will he listen to what is happening out there? Will he listen to his own constituents? Will he listen to what people are saying right across society? The housing crisis was not just a national scandal in 2017 when the Tánaiste called it out; it is a national scandal now.

Things have got worse. House prices have risen beyond all reach of people, rents have exploded and homelessness is at an all-time high. In the middle of that, the wisdom of the Tánaiste, his party and his Government is to end the eviction ban. The consequences of that, whether he wants to ignore them or not, are that people in his constituency, my constituency and every constituency across the State are stressed out, not knowing where they are going.

Things have definitely got worse since the eviction ban was lifted:

Our age group has been completely forgotten about. I never imagined I would be in this position at 50 years of age.

They are the words of a woman in Wicklow, a mother who is at her wits' end because her family is about to be evicted, a mother who cannot sleep because of the stress of it. That is what is happening under the Government's watch. What is its new hare-brained idea? It is to do what it has done in the past and what Fianna Fáil did when it wrecked the economy the last time it was in government, namely, give multimillion euro subsidies to developers instead of building the social, affordable and cost-rental houses that are needed and installing the eviction ban to give itself the breathing space to make sure people have somewhere to go. That is what it should do.

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