Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Like other Deputies, every day I deal with families who are finding it impossible to find rental properties that are any way affordable. The low availability of rental properties coupled with incredibly high rents relating to those properties that are available often results in these families living in totally unsuitable properties that are not fit for human habitation. I have seen the mould, condensation, lack of heating, broken doors, draughts, etc. This is how some people are living in 2023 under the Government's watch.

There are people out there who are putting up with these conditions because there is nowhere else for them to go. They need access to housing that is clean, is affordable, and gives them hope and protects their health. Daily, we in the Opposition have numbers thrown at us from the Government benches. Some are real, some are aspirational but all are meaningless for those who are living in the conditions to which I refer and who cannot afford to move out or who cannot be housed elsewhere because of the sheer number of people in need of homes. This is the Ireland that the Government is overseeing.

I commend Tipperary County Council on the efforts it is making to assist people, but the sheer number of those in need is overwhelming. Why were no local authority affordable homes delivered in Tipperary last year? We had two agreements under the first homes scheme but that was it. Why did the Minister seek to hide the figures on the affordable homes delivery for as long as he could? The Minister is not only hiding the failure of his affordable housing plan; he is hiding the plight of the people who do not have access to affordable housing precisely because of his failed housing policy.

This Bill seeks to make renting more acceptable, and I commend People Before Profit on this move. We in Sinn Féin have been repeatedly calling on the Minister to implement a three-year ban on rent increases for all existing and new tenancies, including new rental stock. We combine this with a full month's rent back into every private renter's pocket through a refundable tax credit. However, the Government will not do this. It makes marginal changes to its own policy, but with little detail and even less urgency. For the people living in substandard accommodation today who are waking up on their couches because their bedrooms are too cold and damp, how will the Green Party justify the time it wasted, during the eviction ban or in cahoots with Fine Gael? Tell that to my constituents. As Deputy Mitchell said, the lifting of the eviction ban will haunt the Greens right up to the local elections and the general election.

See this speech in context