Home ownership has collapsed on your watch! - Deputy Mary Lou McDonald - speech from 5 Dec 2023

I have lost count of the number of times that I have asked you to ban rent increases each time you have said no. Despite rents soaring to unaffordable levels, you won't budge. And now because of your refusal to act, runaway rents have hit an all-time high. The recent report from the Residential Tenancy Board shows massive rent hikes over the last 12 months. New rents have increased by almost 12% in the last year. It's the highest annual rent hike since the RTB began recording these figures 15 years ago. €1,600 per month, that's the average new rent being charged across the state. €2,105 per month, that's what's being charged on average here in Dublin. This Taoiseach is off-the-wall stuff. It's not sustainable for any worker, for any family, for any young person. Runaway rents have become almost normalised on the watch of your government, but there's nothing normal about hard-pressed renters being fleeced right, left and centre. Nothing normal about levels of rent that just keep going up and up and up. How are renters to build a good life Taoiseach? As they fork out these extortionate rents, most don't stand a chance of getting a mortgage deposit together. Not a hope. Every month is another hammer blow to renters who want to own their own home. They do all of the right things. They work hard, they make cutbacks, they scrimp and they save. But with each hike, the dream of home ownership is pushed even farther away. Is it any wonder that home ownership has collapsed under your government for a generation? And no wonder that they pack their bags for Australia and Canada. They're getting out of Dodge. Older renters then, approaching pension age, are also caught up in this nightmare. They worry that their pension won't cover their rent. What an awful feeling it must be for someone who's worked hard all of their life, only to be left with this terrible uncertainty. Families, workers and young people deserve and need affordable housing and affordable rent. And yet the response of your government has been to set affordable housing targets that are far too low and miss those targets again and again. You tell us that your housing plan is working. That claim simply doesn't stack up in the real world. Housing prices are up. Homeownership is down. Rents are through the roof. Homelessness is at record levels. That's your performance on housing Taoiseach. And your repeated message to renters is, don't look to us for real help. You're on your own. Well, that's not going to wash anymore Taoiseach. Renters need meaningful action now. The tax credit you provided is too low. It's being swallowed up by extortionate rent hikes. And without a ban on rent increases, this will keep happening. Now, I'm going to live on the next day. I'll be right back to the next day. I'm going to live on the next day. And I'll be right back to the next day. I'll be right back to the next day. I'll be right back to the next day. T-shirt. Renters are crying out to government for help that will make a real impact and difference. Sinn Féin brings a motion before the dole tonight. It calls on you to do two things for renters. Firstly, to implement an emergency three-year ban on rent increases, and secondly, to cut rents by putting a full month's rent back into the pockets of every private renter. Will you finally take these actions? First of all, we have rent pressure zones in Ireland. We introduced them many years ago, and the vast majority of people renting in Ireland are covered and are protected by those rent pressure zones. That means seeing increases of between 0 and 4 per cent a year. We have also introduced the rent tax credit, and that is a big help for a lot of people. Next year, €750 a year for a single person, €1,500 a year for a couple who are renting together, and that, in many cases, is a month's rent back in renters' pockets. You mentioned some figures that were out in the past couple of days. Those figures show that the average rent paid by somebody in Ireland in an existing tenancy is around €1,300 a month, and that is per property, not per renter. Obviously higher in Dublin, lower outside of Dublin, and the major cities. The figures you specifically referred to, Deputy, relate to new tenancies. New tenancies are properties that are being put on the market, that are being rented out for the first time. Where an existing tenancy is rolled over, the rent pressure zone continues to apply. Rent pressure zones do not apply to properties being put on the market for the first time. The obvious difficulty of what you propose is that if you impose a rent freeze on a property that is being rented for the first time, it only applies after it is being rented out. That is the difficulty with what you propose. The problem that we see in imposing rent freezes for three years, which is your party policy, is that it would almost certainly reduce new supply. What we desperately need in Ireland is new supply of homes of all types. Homes for people to purchase, social housing, and also homes for people to rent. Your policy would mean fewer properties available for people to rent. Yes, that might be a benefit to people who are renting already, but it would pull up the ladder on people who need to rent for the first time. For example, young people, for example, students who get their first job, for example, new arrivals to this country, like nurses, for example, coming to work here in our health service, are indeed people coming back from Australia and the UK in places that they may have migrated to. When it comes to home ownership, Deputy, I have some good news for you. We are seeing record numbers of first-time buyers. We have not seen the numbers of first-time buyers like we have seen recently for 16 years. About 500 first-time mortgages being drawn down every week. About 400 people buying their first home. We have not seen that in 16 years. That is happening because of some of the policies that the government has put forward. Increasing housing supply, reducing the cost of building new homes by getting rid of development levies or suspending them, which is something you are opposed to. The help to buy, something you are opposed to. Giving people their own taxes back to help towards deposit when they are buying a new home. And also schemes like first-home. These are all the things that you would take away from people, Deputy. And you need to be honest about that. Sinn Féin is not a party of home ownership. Sinn Féin wants to take away from people all the things that the government has put in place to help people buy a first home. Home ownership has collapsed on your watch, Taoiseach. That is not just my opinion or my view. I do not say that from a position of bias. That is the fact. That is the fact of the matter. We have runaway rent. We have record levels of homelessness. And we have rents that are crippling people. That is the fact. And the figures that I have quoted to you are from the RTB. They also report, by the way, that existing rents were up 5.5% in Dublin and 5% across the state. So this is a bad news story all round. And I am simply asking you to intervene at a time where you have to know how badly people are struggling. You have to know that if you live in the real world at all. Families, workers, young people really struggling to keep a roof over their head. And I am simply asking you to intervene and do a thing that is eminently sensible. For three years, make it the case that there can be no further increase in rents. Just ban rent increases for three cents. It is common sense and it answers directly the experience and situation and hardship that so many families, workers and young people are experiencing now. Deputy, you say things with such a level of confidence that I say a lot of people actually believe you. But do you actually know the facts? The census says that in 2011, when I was first appointed to government, 1.15 million people owned their own home. In the last census in 2022, 1.2 million people owned their own home. So in raw numbers, actually more people owned their own home in 2022 than was the case in 2011. And yeah, fair enough, the population has increased. So home ownership in the census in 2022 was 68.9%. In 2011 it was 70.4%. Is that really a collapse from 70.8% to 68.9%? By the way, Deputy, just in case you are not aware, percentages have to add up to 100. So why is there one of the reasons why we have seen a change in numbers? Because the percentage of people benefiting from social housing has gone up from 8.7% in 2011 to 10% in 2022. Thank you, Taoiseach. It is true. It is the actual census cycle. Deputy Holly Curran. I'll turn. Can we calm down a little bit, please? And if the mass exodus could be quiet as well.