Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ó Laoghaire for his significant work on this anomaly. I am afraid to call it an anomaly after what Deputy Ó Broin said. Deputy Ó Broin's point was that the rent pressure zone legislation and the rent pressure zones are a piecemeal solution that has failed to work across the board anyway. If we are serious about dealing with the problem for those in the rental sector and providing them with protections, it is exactly like Deputy Ó Broin said. We really need a three-year ban on increases. We need to make sure that we can put a full month's rental back in the pockets of those who must be under incredible pressure. I would have thought that a long time ago many more people would have found themselves unable to pay. I know a significant number of people are. It shows people's resilience and ability to get through the gap.

I looked on daft.iewithin the last two weeks and I saw a house in my own locality with a rental cost of about €3,000. It had a number of bedrooms and was in a nice place and all the rest of it. However, if I had told anyone that a number of years ago, they would have laughed me out of the room. I agree with what Deputies Nash, Ó Broin and Ó Laoghaire have said. We need to see a solution from the Government. The Minister of State said he is not tackling the legislation; he needs to show us a solution to this problem because it is very straightforward. The people in Clogherhead and in Carrigaline ended up frozen in time which was unintended.

The real issue that needs to be dealt with is the complete disaster that is the rental sector. In the long term, along with those protections that we have been talking about ad nauseamin here, we really need to get down to increasing supply. I suppose here comes the single transferable speech that we need to get serious on the provision of public housing on public lands. We are talking about cost-rental, affordable and local authority housing. Deputy Ó Broin has referred to the need for 20,000 for a significant amount of time. We all know the targets that have been set. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and many others will give statistics on the magnificent work that has been done by the Government, but the problem is the people out there do not realise that because they are dealing with the reality of not being able to buy or rent a house, or are facing eviction. That is why the Government had to introduce the tenant in situscheme. I was never quite sure whether that scheme was a real solution or was a debating point that was necessary to get through interviews. I will put it down to pressure brought by the Opposition which was really useful in the sense that in some cases we got solutions for those people who are facing eviction.

Louth County Council and others have engaged in the process of purchasing some of these houses. The longer this goes on and the longer this disaster relating to homelessness figures and all the rest of it go on, I am concerned whether the local authorities have the capacity to deliver on that because we are taking them from other sections. I think I have brought that issue up with the Minister of State previously.

It could be this legislation and-or another solution; nobody is wedded to a particular solution. We need to ensure that at least what limited protections there are for people in rent pressure zones should be introduced as soon as possible for those in Clogherhead and Carrigaline. That goes without saying. This is an issue that has gone on for too long. As we face into further boundary changes, many people in this House will be interested in the matter. I accept that this was an unintended consequence but it may have been down to rushed legislation that was not looked at closely enough. We have now seen a problem and like most problems we know it makes sense to deal with it. That is before we get into the major issue. This is not the first time we have been here saying that renters do not have the protections they need. As much as we would like those limited 2% protections that are provided by RPZs to be provided to the people of Clogherhead and Carrigaline, we really need to redraw that legislation in order to provide real protection to renters.

It has all been said. This will be the first time in my life that I will hand back close on five minutes.

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