Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal East, Labour)

There are swathes of people raising families in a rental system that was never designed for long-term living, with the inflationary impact of increased rental costs. The average industrial wage in this country is just over €50,000, but the average rental price in Dublin is over half the industrial wage. If we take into account all the cost-of-living increases, particularly relating to food, they have been well discussed. We have brought forward motions in relation to this. My colleague, Deputy Nash, has done great work in raising the issue of increased food costs. However, some households are worse off to the tune of €3,000 per year on food costs alone. If we look at beef, there was a 23% increase in beef prices in four months earlier this year. We are not talking about fillet steaks or premium cuts of meat. We are talking about beef mince that will go into lasagna, spaghetti bolognese and shepherd's pie, meals and staples that should last a couple of days. Ordinary families are being priced into poverty. Workers are being priced into poverty by this Government's inaction.

Rents remain too high. Not too long ago this Government asked us to rise and applaud nurses, gardaí and teachers on €35,000, €38,000 or €45,000 per year who unable to afford so-called affordable housing schemes. Look at the other workers in those sectors, namely, the healthcare assistants, the Garda clerical staff, and the school secretaries who have been on the line in recent weeks who are earning less than their colleagues in the same industry. They are even further and further away.

The Government is gaslighting people in relation to the tenant in situ scheme, announcing more money in late summer for a scheme that is an absolute zombie scheme. I am working with numerous families who were well down the road, along with their landlords, of availing of a tenant in situ scheme but who have had the rug pulled from under them and who are now overholding, some of them over two years, and one of whom was advised not to take an allocation that they had accrued through their time on the list because a tenant in situ scheme was about to come through for them. That scheme has been pulled and they do not have a housing allocation and they are entering homelessness with a child with severe additional needs. There are 5,014 homeless children in a country that cannot stop bringing in money and that cannot stop finding extra billions. It is an absolute scandal.

One measure that will help tackle poverty is to get the community welfare officers out from behind the hatch and to decentralise the system and to give them mileage and allow them to set up clinics and meet families in towns and villages all over the country and to understand the community. They must allowed to pay for new gas boilers when 94-year-old women in my constituency are unable to avail of them because they have to avail of the full retrofit scheme and pay up front. It is an absolute scandal.

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