Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)

This morning the DNG report tells us that in Dublin the average cost of a second hand home is €600,000. I have a very simple question for the Minister of State. Who is buying these houses? Who is earning the money to pay 600 grand for a second-hand house in Dublin? People want to live near their family, which is not an outrageous thing to want. They want to live in the city they were born in. They want to raise their family there. Does the Minister of State accept that because of his Government's policies that is becoming less and less likely, if not impossible, for anybody who is on anything close to a normal wage? Does he understand how much a person would have to earn to buy one of those houses, the average cost of which is €600,000? Would he ever reflect on that and maybe think about the young couple paying some of the highest rents in Europe trying to save for a deposit to buy a house in the place where they were born and where they want to raise their family, to buy a house near a parent, to be able to raise their family close to their own family and where they grew up and how they are seeing that get further and further away? Every year the Minister of State's party is in government, it gets further and further away from them.

In my constituency the average rent is well over €2,500. Meanwhile, the council tells tenants it has no money for the tenant in situ scheme, so people are forced into emergency accommodation. The Minister of State has neck to tell my constituents that €560,000 is affordable, which it is not. Until he accept his role in causing the housing crisis, drops his arrogance and starts listening-----

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