Mairéad Farrell: Galway rents up 18% - Government must act
Mairéad Farrell speaks in the Dail about the cost-of-living crisis hitting Galway West, highlighting an 18% rise in rents and wages lagging far behind. She urges the government to ban rent increases, end no-fault evictions and build social and affordable homes, citing Central Bank warnings that people are getting poorer.
Key claim
Mairéad Farrell details how working families in Galway West are being squeezed by soaring rents, crippling energy bills and rising food costs. She points to an 18 percent increase in rents in Galway and argues this is unsustainable when wages are not keeping pace.
Policy demands
Farrell sets out specific remedies she says the government should adopt: an immediate ban on rent increases, an end to no-fault evictions and a large-scale programme to build social and affordable housing. She criticises ministers for repeatedly voting down proposals aimed at easing pressure on renters.
Economic warning
Farrell highlights recent analysis from the Central Bank’s quarterly bulletin, saying its revised forecasts show prices rising faster than wages and that, under the current government, people are getting poorer. She challenges the government to stop taking advice that, she argues, serves the wealthiest.
Human impact
The speech emphasises the lived experience of families in Galway who cannot heat their homes or put food on the table, arguing that worsening rents and housing shortages are direct results of government policy choices. Farrell calls for the Dail to listen to communities rather than a narrow set of advisors.
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The cost-of-living crisis is hitting my constituency of Galway West incredibly hard. In this chamber I've raised countless examples of families in Galway under unbearable pressure from the cost of living. Working people who cannot make their wages, stretched to cover soaring rents, crippling energy bills and the ever-increasing cost of their weekly shop. But crucially Minister rents are now up in Galway by 18 percent. That means the rents are rising more than four times faster than wages and this government knows that that is completely and utterly unsustainable. Even the Taoiseach admitted that very few people can afford rents in Galway but still Minister he refused to act. You vote against every single proposal that we put forward to ease pressures on renters. If the government were serious about tackling the cost-of-living crisis they would ban rent increases effective immediately. They would end no-fault evictions and they would ramp up housing supply by actually building social and affordable homes. But no matter how many stories are raised in this chamber of working people, struggling families and fractured communities in desperate need of help with the cost-of-living crisis you fail to act. You should be listening to these people, these families, these communities who are the backbone of our economy but instead you take your advice from a select few economists who pat you on the back and tell you that you have built a strong booming economy that is performing very well for the wealthiest in our society. But two weeks ago some of our most senior economists sounded the alarm bells. The Central Bank published their quarterly bulletin. Their revised forecasts show that the cost-of-living crisis will go up even further than they expected this year. These forecasts show that prices aren't just going up, they're going up faster than wages. The Central Bank are crystal clear, under your government people are getting poorer. So the issue here Minister is that we know from what the Central Bank are telling us is that real wages are dropping. That means that people are going to struggle even more than they have been up to this point. There's no point everybody coming into this chamber in the Christmas winter months when we're hearing that parents can't put food on the table, that we are hearing that parents can't heat their homes and everybody cries out and says oh my god isn't that terrible. Well Minister we've told you that this is going to happen. It's not only that we're telling you that this is going to happen. Statistics constantly show you that people are moving and going into poverty because of the political choices that you make and this is on you. Rents and the housing crisis continuously getting worse is a direct result of your policies. Nobody else's your policies. It'd be high time Minister for you to start listening to the other people in this room because what you're doing is terrible. you
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