Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom dea-scéal a chéiliúradh i dtosach báire. I welcome the announcement yesterday and the information that followed it that Kleber Silva Medeiros, for whom we had campaigned in the Houses, was to be allowed to return home after the deportation order against him had been revoked.I thank the Members of the Houses and the Leader for intervening as well as the Minister for allowing and making this happen. At a further date, we can examine why it happened, but today it is great news for him and his wife, Harriet Bruce. Itinerary permitting, it is hoped that he will be able to travel home for Christmas.

We have been proved right that we were being sold a pig in a poke when we debated rent certainty in the House in recent weeks. There was an awful lot of talk and we were told to wait to see the rental strategy as it was going to solve all the problems and that the Government would tackle all the issues in the rental sector. We argued vehemently that we did not have faith in it and, on initial reading of the strategy for the rental sector, I am afraid my fears have been realised. Rather than putting a brake on rent increases, the document will allow landlords to increase rents 4% every year for the next three years. At the core of this strategy is a guaranteed rent increase of 12% over three years. This will continue to heap more pressure on struggling renters and lock low-income families and single people out of the rental market.

Thanks to the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Coveney, a family renting an average home in Dublin at €1,500 a month will pay an additional €4,500 in rent over the next three years. In Cork city, families will be out of pocket by an extra €3,200 over the same period. For those living outside these so-called rent pressure zones, rents will continue to rise. As I have constantly intimated to the Minister, the latest quarterly rental report for daft.ieshows that tenants in Galway city face an average annual rent increase of 10.9%. In Limerick, it was even higher, at 13.2%. This rental strategy will do nothing for those in Galway who are struggling with their rents. When debating legislation on the matter recently, Fianna Fáil stated it would revisit the situation if the Minister did not deal with this issue in a meaningful way. It will be time to do that if this legislation to enable the rental strategy comes before these Houses in the next week or so. I hope Fianna Fáil will be on side with us. At the moment, we need to discuss those issues with all parties and groupings across these Houses to ensure that proper rent certainty is introduced.

I welcome the efforts made by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, in terms of refugee children being brought here. However, she also has a crisis on her own doorstep in terms of the child care regulations to be introduced in January and she is burying her head in the sand. I have been inundated with calls from centres that may well have to close down because they will not be able to comply with the regulations within the time specified. Workers that have been working in services for years may have to relinquish their jobs because they do not have FETAC level 5 qualifications, which will be required. It is totally and utterly impractical to expect this to be implemented in January. In Gaeltacht areas, it is even more difficult because they are looking for people with Irish to fill positions. Further, the wages in the sector are one of the reasons that it is so difficult to find staff as it is. We need an urgent response from the Minister. She needs to rethink what she wants to impose from January onwards because it simply will not work. It will put people out of business and close down services.