Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Sinn Féin group, I offer our condolences to our colleague, Senator Currie, and her family on the passing of Austin Currie. May he rest in peace.

The latest Daft rental report confirms what anybody who is trying to rent in this country already knows, which is that rents are continuing to rise. Munster, Connacht and Ulster are facing hikes of between 15% and 18% and, incredibly, the average monthly rent in Ireland is now €1,516. There is no doubt the rental crisis is continuing and the Minister continues to be four steps behind with every measure he takes. For years we have said rent pressure zones were not working and yet the Minister thinks simply tweaking around the edges will fix it. Seventeen counties have double-digit rental increases and some counties have had increases of as much as 20%. What does the Minister propose to deal with it? He proposes to allow landlords to hike rents by a further 2%.

Sinn Féin has detailed proposals to support tenants, including a ban on rental increases, money back in renters' pockets through a refundable tax credit, and the prioritisation of genuinely affordable homes, including affordable purchase and cost rental. People waking up today will not be surprised with the Daft report because anybody who is trying to rent in this country knows how broken the system is. Tragically, they have a Government which gives them no hope of any change in the short term.

The recent budget offered nothing for renters and the policies coming from the office of the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, continue to be developer, investor and landlord driven. The Minister said he would ban co-living but left a long enough lead-in time to allow the developers to get their applications in before the change came into effect. The Minister said he would curb investors' bulk-buying homes, but the Government is now embarking on a roadshow to calm the investors and to assure them to stick with us, as the Tánaiste said.

Later today we will debate a Bill to abolish strategic housing developments, SHDs, a developer-led planning process designed to bypass democratic oversight. We warned it would fail and now, unfortunately, we have been proven right. However, just like co-living, the proposal in the Bill to be debated today has such a long lead-in time that the SHDs will be with us until 2022. Throughout next year developers will be able to use planning processes to delay the system of getting houses onto the market. The housing system in Ireland is broken. Despite nine years of rent inflation, the Minister is repeating the same mistakes of his predecessor. Tinkering will not cut it. Housing is like climate change and transport. It will only be fixed by State-led capital investment.