Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. Renting continues to be an unpredictable nightmare for many people. The irony is that we are working harder and saving more money, yet renting in Dublin is still prohibitively expensive. Dublin city rents now average over €2,000 per month. Last year, State-wide, rents increased by 1.2%. If ever there was a time to give renters a break, it is now. We would like to see one month's rent put back into the pockets of people who are renting through a refundable tax credit given to all renters. I call on the Minister to introduce this measure.

I welcome the fact the Minister has now accepted that rent pressure zones were not the solution to tackling rising rents. The 4% annual increase permitted was seen as a target by many landlords as opposed to a limit. It is deeply depressing that for so many years this policy was pursued as protection for renters when the only certainty was the 4% increase in tenants' rents. That is why we also need action on a three-year rent freeze. That must happen immediately.

There has been talk about those looking to buy a home. For those considering buying a property, the situation is pretty grim. We have seen in the news that the price of the cheapest apartment in Dublin is €395,000. That would require a €36,000 deposit and a combined gross salary of €90,000. Apartment prices are high because of Government policies. The tax measures promoted by this Government make it easy and attractive for cuckoo funds, real estate investment trusts and speculators to come in and leverage their advantage over the chronic shortage of housing. What does the Minister consider the price of an affordable house to be? The help-to-buy scheme has been criticised by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, which stated it would only push up prices and that is exactly what it seems to be doing. The most senior civil servant at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform said the shared equity scheme is about lining the pockets of developers.

Co-living is a bizarre policy in a time of Covid and another sop to developers in terms of the loosening of standards in apartment construction. It is a policy the Minister described as "bonkers". He announced in November, thankfully, that he was introducing a ban on co-living. He went on Twitter to tell us the ban was permanent but nothing seemed to happen until a month later, when a statutory instrument was signed in the Custom House on 23 December. In that period of inaction, many applications for such developments were made and many developers changed their previous applications that were for apartments and turned instead to co-living. The development of the Phibsborough shopping centre was one example of a proposal changing from apartments to co-living units in the time between the Minister's announcement of the ban and when it was officially signed.Why was there such a delay? I submitted to Hendrons an objection to the co-living development close to the Broadstone-DIT Luas stop. In Kilmainham, there are applications for two large co-living developments. None of these projects will help people in Dublin South-Central and the south inner city to find appropriate affordable rental properties in their city or in their areas.

Homelessness has been mentioned. Over Christmas and during the period of cold weather, there were deaths on our streets. We will all agree that every death is a tragedy that should never take place. I express my sympathies, as others will, to those whose loved ones died unnecessarily. The problems facing rough sleepers were highlighted on "RTE Investigates" and we saw the farcical situation of people being told they would have to go to their home counties. The Minister addressed this and said he would watch it like a hawk, as will we. There needs to be an increase in the budget for housing. Truly social homes need to come online, as well as 4,000 affordable rental and 4,000 affordable purchase houses. It is only through the rapid building of houses within reach of workers and renters that the dysfunctional housing and rental market can be reformed. I would like the Minister to restate for the record what he considers to be an affordable purchase price for a house and what he considers affordable in the context of rent.