Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Since 2012, house prices have risen more dramatically than wages and that has left a significant number of people, young people in particular, locked out of home ownership and living in the private rental market. People are paying more than 40% of their salary on rent. What are they getting in return? No protection if the home is sold; no protection if the landlord decides to move in; no protection from eviction; no protection if the landlord's family member decides to move in; no protection for your deposit; and certainly no protection if your name is not on the lease in the first place. The CSO has said 33% of adults between the ages of 25 and 29 live at home with their parents. Eurostat has that figure at 68% and it is increasing all the time. More people every year are not moving out of their family home. We know couples and single people who are moving back in with their parents to save for a deposit. A number of generations can now only dream of home ownership.

We need to ramp up the delivery of non-market homes. We need 21,000 affordable homes to rent and buy for middle-income people every year, resourcing of the planning system, greater use of vacant and derelict properties, low-carbon and modern building techniques, purchase of turnkey developments for social and affordable targets and billions of euro in additional housing budget. We need a completely new approach involving public housing on public land on a scale we have never seen before and a much greater level of State investment in using public lands, master-planned by councils and financed by the State, to deliver affordable homes that working people can rent or buy.

Fine Gael has been in government for 13 years. In those 13 years, homelessness has increased every year. There has been a 250% increase in homelessness since Fine Gael took office. That is the record of John Cummins's, Garret Ahearn's and John McGahon's party. That is its legacy and that is why Fine Gael and this Government have to go.