SPOOF ALL YOU WANT TAOISEACH! Deputy Mary Lou McDonald- speech from 17 Jun 2025

Welcome to Leaders Questions Teachta, we've now had over a decade of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael presiding over a housing emergency and now you propose to force ripped off renters to carry the can for your failures Your plan for the private rental sector is really Fianna Fáil's rent hike bill and you can spoof all you want the only certainty from your move is that rent is going to increase for every renter it's only a question of when we know that the average length of a tenancy is three and a half years and many are much shorter so the impact of your plan will be felt very quickly all renters will be subject to big hikes over time those moving into new build properties will be hit with massive market rent from day one while those who move frequently for work and education and regularly enter new tenancies will be absolutely hammered we're talking about construction workers health care workers in training students who already struggle to find affordable accommodation fleeced over and over Fianna Fáil's rent hike bill is a bonanza for the big property funds the vultures for the corporate landlords a blueprint to boost the profit of the big boys and to screw over renters that's your plan and you do this during a persistent cost-of-living crisis when people are hit with price hikes right across the board over the last four years the cost of the weekly shop has skyrocketed by 3,000 euros a year for many, many families on average renters are forking out an additional 7,000 euros a year on rent so where do you think Taoiseach that people get the money? everything within your back of an envelope plan is a jumble of contradictions the product of a panicked government at sixes and sevens desperately seeking to defend a plan that more resembles a last throw of the dice gamble rather than an actual solution it's been blunder after blunder you had to change the press statement announcing your plan because you made such a mess of things you said one thing the minister said another thing the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing and nowhere in the announcement on Tuesday or in the days that followed was any mention made of government immediately bringing forward legislation to extend rent pressure zones to the entire state you were content to wait until March and expose renters to big hikes but by Thursday lo and behold you changed your story and you were adamant that it was always your intention to bring forward that legislation Taoiseach pulled the other one you're only doing it now because you were called out he took such is the mess now that we have government TDs briefing against the housing minister in their words for producing a plan that he can't explain and that they can't understand well I'm happy to explain it to them this is Fianna Fáil's plan to hike up rents that's it that's the bottom line canteen bill in a fall conquista ardu garraki on cases or to the got here shore near in a fanox near favor lanunt la show Taoiseach the only way to undo the damage is to go back to the drawing board by all means extend rent pressure zones to the rest of the state areas that should never have been left out in the first place by the way but you have to drop the rest of the Fianna Fáil rent hike bill it's a crazy plan and renters simply cannot take any more thank you deputy Taoiseach first of all deputy um i reject completely your assertions i think you're guilty of severe exaggerated commentary in respect of the reform of the rent pressure zones announced last week and the bottom line is as a result of those reforms renters will have stronger protections than ever before and all renters will be covered by rent pressure zones and it will be interesting of course that the very first item on the agenda of our rent pressure reforms would be something that you have no choice but to support so despite all the bluster all the hype you will go into the voting lobbies to support the very first measure of the reform package that we announced um last week and it's interesting you know michael burn who's a lecturer in political economy at the school of social policy social work and social justice and ucdn works with threshold he has said that the security of tenure measures announced last week are really significant and i quote arguably they are among the most robust protection for tenants in europe i'm not saying that no one the government decided saying it it's someone who's been involved in the area for quite some time and that is the case because we have an act an effective end to no fault evictions where the landlord has four or more tenancies new tendencies will now be guaranteed for six years tenancies with smaller landlords generally have a minimum duration of six years and with limited circumstances more limited than before um smaller tenancies can end and i look forward to you either opposing those measures surely you'll have to vote for them for the additional protections we're going to bring forward and what will happen is the contrast between your hype and your hyperbole contrasting that with what will happen when we put these legislative pieces through the house will be a yawning gap because you simply surely will have to vote for these additional protections but the more fundamental point is this you have proposed a rent freeze for three years that would damage supply overall your objective is to reduce the rental market that's your overall policy objective as a party you have a ideological hostility to the rental market and to the private market more generally in terms of construction the freeze on on on rent increases would mean no one could claim for maintenance costs or even the cost of inflation and who is going to invest in new units with sinn fein's policy because your solutions simply are wrong and your whole proposition is incoherent because the only way we can deal with the housing crisis is to dramatically increase supply we have increased it from 2020 onwards uh to about 30 odd thousand a year we had up to then 20 000 a year so it's now gone to 30 odd thousand we want to get to 50 000 a year we need both public investment which we're we're doing the state is the largest investor in the housing market at the moment and we need substantial private sector investment as well and i think the shin fein party has to acknowledge that and i know you you've been protesting and you're saying this is an emergency and so on like that which raises which it is i think it's a crisis we need to deal with it societally but i do it does beg the question though it does beg the question deputy as to how you as a deputy could oppose to date up to 1700 housing units in your own area can live college 1700 units and um and cabra likewise now if you're saying it's an emergency across the country how come it's not an emergency in your constituency or in the areas where you object you can't have it both ways you simply cannot have it both ways and this kind of approach this duplicitous approach in my view to housing has to end and what we need from you are concrete solutions as to how you increase supply so that we can get to a situation where we can be building 50 000 a year so uh it might interest you to know that far from having an ideological objection to rental accommodation i was actually raised in rental accommodation imagine that so i i have i have no ideological as a matter of fact i'm absolutely determined that renters whether they're long-term renters as was is the case from my my family or shorter term renters which is the more normal experience that they are not fleeced and gouged in the way that is currently happening i mean i i don't know how blunt or clear we have to be with you but renters now pay thousands of euros more than just a few short years ago and and all of the additional costs in a cost of living crisis so you can stand up and bluster and and cast dispersions at me all you like you're in government you are the Taoiseach it is your housing minister that is proposing a bill that will have one effect one definite effect and that is higher rents for renters and i am appealing to you don't do that renters have had enough have some decency and some consideration for people who are struggling i'm not talking about you i'm not talking about you personally i'm not going to go to shin fein party and the shin fein party's shin fein party's policy objective over time is to reduce the size of the private rental sector and if you look at your policies over the last number of years it's been designed to suppress supply in the private rental market and you've argued then for a tripling we've built more social houses in the last four years uh than has been built since 1975 36 500 new social houses built in 2023 12 000 social houses delivered and 10 and a half thousand delivered um last year these are record numbers of social housing delivered you're saying overnight you can do that you can go to 30 000 overnight and you have not outlined how you would get uh to 30 000 overnight and the measures proposed last week and the reforms will cap rent will cap rent for all existing tenants to two percent you know that and thank you in terms of any new tenants post 2026 will be at cpi like share and subscribe to stay informed and help drive positive change