Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It seems that every time that housing is outsourced to the market, it causes problems. Whether that is for students, asylum seekers, people in nursing homes or people on local authority waiting lists, the answer from the Government always seems to be to outsource it again. Their idea is to build more units, not to focus on social and affordable housing.

The housing crisis is the biggest issue facing the State today and the failure to deliver sufficient supply, especially of affordable and social homes, has had devastating consequences for ordinary people. People are forced to live in old houses, in increasingly damp and hazardous conditions, posing serious threats to their health. Young people are emigrating at an alarming rate because they cannot afford extortionate rents.

The House has heard many examples from the Social Democrats - I thank them for bringing the motion today - of individual cases. In my own constituency, it is hard to find a family that has not been impacted by this crisis. This week alone, in my office I had a family of two adults and two children who have recently been told it would be 12 years before they would be considered for a house, and another couple is waiting for a house for 16 years. A 67-year-old man who is in hospital with pneumonia is living in or returning to a house that is nearly as old as himself. He suffers from COPD and arthritis, is recovering from pneumonia, as I said, and he is expected to go back to an old house in damp conditions. I also met a wheelchair user who has been waiting years for a ground floor apartment to no avail and another family with three children, one of whom has Down's syndrome, that needs more space for all the medical equipment they need in that house.

It is glaringly obvious to anybody who is paying attention that the solutions offered by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over the past ten or 14 years have not worked. They have refused to change tack. The only changes that the Coalition of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Lowry group, which includes my constituency colleagues, junior Minister, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, and Government-supporting Deputy Danny Healy-Rae make will be at the expense of ordinary workers and families.

Unlike this Government, I do not believe that renters should be punished for Government failures. I certainly do not believe that it is acceptable to pull the wool over people's eyes, as the Government did recently when it claimed it would complete 40,000 homes by the end of 2024 during the general election campaign. They have missed their targets, year after year. In fact, 30,000 homes were completed, a far cry from the 60,000 that will be required over the next five years. Let me be clear. The housing plan of the Government is failing the people of Kerry and the people of the State.

During the previous Government, house prices and rents rose to historic highs. In Kerry, rents rose by between 6% and 8.5% last year and the average monthly payment is now in or around €1,400 per month, the 15th consecutive quarter in which rents have jumped in Kerry. Where is the change that is to happen? What is the Lowry group bringing to the table?

As if it could not get any worse, the latest move from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Lowry Independents may cause rents to rise even further. If the Minister were here - it is ironic that someone who was calling out other people for hiding seems to have disappeared over the past few weeks - we would ask him about the tenant in situ scheme. In July, three or four years ago, when the scheme was announced initially with no targets and no scheme shown to the local authority in Kerry, the then Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, said it was a cop out by Kerry County Council to say it did not have the procedures in place, but the same thing is happening three years later.

Last weekend, the Minister's revelations put the fear of God into many renters. They were told to brace themselves for difficult decisions that lie ahead. Were things not bad enough without having to put the fear of God into renters?

The situation is similarly bleak for those looking to purchase homes. House prices are rising faster in Kerry than in many other areas. The national average is 9% but house prices in Kerry rose by 11.4%. The average price is now 41.6% above pre-Covid levels. Is it any wonder when housing supply in Kerry is down 17% on last year, one third of the average from 2015 to 2019.

People want to see this Government fix the crisis-----

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