Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to be able to speak on this Private Members' Bill this evening because there is so much pain behind the closed doors of north Kildare. It was good to have the opportunity to focus completely on the constituency over the past couple of months. People are living on ordinary wages and paying extraordinary mortgages for a standard home. I was talking to a woman in her 50s this morning who used to work full-time and is now working part-time because she cannot afford the after-school childcare. It cost more than her salary and she simply could not afford to work full-time anymore. Ten rate rises on, her high mortgage on an ordinary three-bedroom semi-detached house in north Kildare has eaten up her part-time salary, leaving her effectively working for nothing. She and her family have never missed a mortgage repayment and now they are really worried about whether they will be able to keep up their repayments. With three kids still in school, they are terrified they could lose their home. She has heard me talking about the number of people who are facing that predicament in north Kildare.

For months, we have been calling on the Government to do the right thing and to bring in time-limited interest relief on the rate rises while people are struggling. They are really struggling, even with two wages coming into the house, with the current crisis in the cost of living and in energy prices. You need not bother coming out your front door now unless you have €50 in your pocket. Going into the supermarket, you will be very lucky to get away - if you have any size of family at all - with spending less than €100. Everything is money; mortgages, uniforms, heating, electricity, the food shop, shoes and the doctor. If you have to go to the dentist, you nearly need to go for a credit union loan. People are getting hammered by all the things they cannot give up. These are things that are not luxuries, namely, a roof over their heads, food, heat, and keeping their kids in clothes and shoes that still fit them. I really wonder about this Government. Is it conducting some kind of social experiment on ordinary working people who are hammered by ten interest rate increases? Is it seeing how long people can actually bear it and how much more they can take or endure? This is what it feels like and what people are telling me they believe. When I talk to people across north Kildare, they tell me they are working harder than ever but have less and less to show for it because every penny is going on mortgage increases and the increase in the cost of living. For goodness' sake, I ask the Minister to do the right thing and to accept Sinn Féin's Private Members' Bill. I ask him not to oppose our motion and give people a hand with the rate increases, not another wallop. People cannot endure much more of this Government.

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