Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There was talk of a slowdown in rent rises after the latest Daft report, but new rents in south Dublin still rose by 4.2%. Unfortunately, wages did not go up, which is the big crisis facing many families. An average three-bedroom rented house in Tallaght now goes for over €2,200 per month, which is €27,000 per year. What family or individual can afford this on top of ever-increasing costs like those of childcare and energy? What young teacher, nurse, soldier, garda, bricklayer or factory worker can afford to live close to Dublin when rents are so high? That is before we even begin to think about home ownership. A buyer would need a deposit of at least €30,000 to secure a mortgage for a three-bedroom semi-detached home in Tallaght, which is impossible to save when already paying for rent, childcare, energy and transport and meeting the cost of living. Until we inject massive amounts of new social and affordable properties into the system, there can be no end to the spiralling prices and rents that have been the story of the Irish property market.

The Government’s plan simply is not working. The Minister might not know that but everyone else does. None of the Government’s housing plans has worked and it is safe to say none of its future plans will work unless there is a radical reset of Government housing policy. We need to at least double the number of affordable homes to buy and rent. We need affordable housing that is affordable, not houses attracting the crazy prices Deputy Ó Broin read out, such as those in Dublin Mid-West or my area. Houses need to be affordable to workers and their families.

Sinn Féin has a plan to fix the housing crisis. We have workable, ambitious solutions that would alleviate the pressure on the housing market and allow supply to start meeting demand finally. Put simply, the longer Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are in power, the worse the housing crisis will get. We are asking that people give us a chance to fix the housing market that others clearly cannot fix. That is the big challenge. If people are genuinely concerned about fixing it, there are alternatives.

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