Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The housing crisis is still getting worse. Every week, I meet couples who are working, whose combined income puts them over the limit for social housing and who are simply unable to afford a home in the market. They are spending all their money, week to week, on their rent and cannot save up a deposit. Such people are utterly trapped. The market has failed those people. The Taoiseach talked about affordable housing. Let us take the example of cost rental. In my constituency, we now have some cost-rental homes. However, affordability is defined by the Government not in relation to how much income people have and whether they can afford it but as a percentage reduction to an utterly unaffordable market rate. The Taoiseach claims that going 25% below the market rate is somehow affordable but it is still unaffordable. I will give the example of a new development in Citywest. Under cost rental, the price is €1,390 for a one-bedroom home, €1,580 for a two-bedroom home and €1,750 for a three-bedroom home. It is still unaffordable for enormous numbers of workers. We are talking about a couple with a net income of €66,000 or less. If they are at the highest rate of €66,000, 31% of their income is going on housing for a three-bed home. If they earn less, that percentage rises quickly to 40% or 50%. These are not affordable just by virtue of the Government stating they cost slightly less than a massively unaffordable level. Does the Taoiseach accept the point that the cost is not affordable? We need properly affordable homes, which means, for one thing, getting rid of the limits for social housing and allowing anybody to apply for it.

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