Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I propose to share time with Senator Boylan.

This plan was an opportunity to move on from the failed policies of Rebuilding Ireland and to introduce a radical new plan for housing. Instead, this is a plan that is wedded to the status quo. It is lined with figures that are disingenuous and projections that are meaningless. It is disingenuous to claim that €4 billion will be spent annually by the Government. This is a fiction because the real figure is €2.5 billion of voted capital expenditure.

The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, says that this cannot be solved overnight. I should say that promises of housing delivery in a decade will do nothing for struggling renters, those desperate to buy and those waiting on housing waiting lists. It is clear that there will be little, if any, increase in direct capital investment in social and affordable homes between now and 2025 above what is already in the pipeline. This means that rents and house prices will continue to rise and that supply will lag behind.

I want to focus in the few minutes that I have on those struggling to rent at the moment. A quarter of Dublin's population are renters. For them, this policy will be a massive disappointment. There is no commitment to ban rent increases. Frankly, it is incredible that one year into a Government term a policy could be published that includes nothing to ban rent increases and that it would talk about tenancies of indefinite duration - something that tenants are crying out for - when we know that this Government will not change the law when it comes to stopping evictions on the grounds of sale of property or use by a family member, both of which amount to 70% of all notices to quit. The test of whether renters will be protected by this Government is whether rent increases are banned, whether renters are given a tax break to the tune of one month's rent put back in their pockets because, God knows, real estate investment trusts get enough of a tax break as it is, and whether we remove section 34 grounds, as I mentioned, on use of property by a family member, the sale of property or the renovation of the property, that would ensure tenancies of indefinite duration.

There is nothing here for renters because other interests win out, and no ideas on the part of the Government, only more of the same that created this mess in the first place. We need to ban rent increases for three years and reduce rents with a tax credit that puts one month's rent back in the pocket of every renter in the State, we need stronger legal protections to prevent renters being evicted into homelessness and we also need a date for the referendum to enshrine the right to housing in the Constitution. We need this referendum in 2022.

It is incredible that a plan could be published that fails to give certainty to tenants who are paying, in Dublin, the fifth highest rents in Europe, after London, Zurich, Geneva, and Moscow.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien expects us to believe that the same policies that have got us into this crisis will solve this crisis. The policies that rely on the private market have us where we are today. They will not solve the problems that we face.