Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry that the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has left the Chamber because he referred to the eviction bans and we are blue in the face from asking for a no-fault eviction ban. The reason we are doing so came to the fore for me last week when a mother of two young children rang me. The eldest child was four and she said that if tears could build a house she would have a house without a problem. Her children had just found out about Santa Claus and they kept asking her why they had not put up a tree and why they could not put up decorations. She had to try to explain to him that they would be moving because she had an eviction notice for the following Sunday. She had to explain that they would be moving and they did not want to confuse Santa Claus. This is the reality on the ground.

Mayo has the second-highest rate of rent increases for new tenancies, a staggering 18.5% in one year. That is the situation workers and families that are trying to put roofs over their heads are facing. Even for people staying in the same property, their rents have gone up. One woman who I spoke to this week has to try to find €700 to €1,100 per month. Every day brings more people calling to my constituency offices, desperately seeking help with housing. A 50-year-old man with a lifelong illness has been forced to either sleep on a camp bed in his elderly mother's one-bedroom flat or sleep in his car. He has been doing this for more than a year. A single parent with her two children had to leave their home and the two children had to move into their grandmother's house, where there were already nine people living in overcrowded situations. The mum had to couch surf for four and a half months. This is the reality for people in Mayo. When the Minister comes in here to congratulate the Government on what it has done, I would ask him to spend one day outside my constituency office in Ballina to see what the reality is like.

See this speech in context