Rising rents a ‘grim’ mark on Taoiseach’s record, Sinn Féin leader says

A record increase in rental costs is a “grim” development on Taoiseach Micheal Martin’s watch, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald claimed on Tuesday during sharp Dáil exchanges about housing.

Citing the latest Daft.ie report, showing rents were 14.1 per cent higher in the third quarter of this year than 12 months earlier, Ms McDonald said the average price of renting a home in Dublin was now €2,258 a month and €1,700 in the Taoiseach’s home base of Cork.

She repeated her party’s call for the Government to declare a “national housing emergency” and for a ban on rent increases for three years.

In response, Mr Martin claimed Ms McDonald had latched on to the term “housing emergency” in the past two weeks as though it were some sort of magic remedy. The Taoiseach said he had called the housing crisis a “social emergency” in September of last year when he published the Government’s Housing for All policy.

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“You and your party have time and again opposed housing policies and specific housing development projects,” he told the Sinn Féin leader.

He said the party opposed the Help to Buy scheme, which has helped 35,000 people buy their homes, and also the First Home Scheme. Mr Martin added that Ms McDonald had personally opposed housing projects in her Dublin Central constituency at Clonliffe Road, Moore Street and Cabra.

Insane amounts

The Sinn Féin leader asked “who could afford these insane amounts of money?”.

“Well, the answer is very few,” she continued, adding that only the very rich could afford to live in Ireland’s cities.

She said teaching unions had warned that these costs were having an impact on education because their members could not afford to live in some areas.

Ms McDonald said homelessness figures, expected to be published on Friday, would show the issue at a record level and this would further compound the housing crisis. She said social and affordable housing supply is inadequate and will only get worse, while the housing budget was underspent by almost €500 million.

Labour leader Ivana Bacik also highlighted reports of a €476 million underspend of the Government’s housing budget for the first nine months of this year, including a €228 million shortfall on council housing. This was, she said, “not the level of expenditure one would expect or should see during what President Higgins has rightly described as the housing disaster”.

She said the Daft report was another “indictment of Government failings” on housing as she highlighted increases of a “staggering 20 per cent” in areas such as Longford and Cavan.

Notice to quit

Ms Bacik said one student had told her she spent five months looking for a place to rent and was now paying €1,200 for a room in a shared house. Another had told her that when she contacted her landlord requesting heating and plumbing repairs, she was issued with a notice to quit because her landlord was selling the property.

Replying, Mr Martin said “you should know well” that “every year, every department carries over 10 per cent of its budget because schemes are not completed before the end of December deadline”. He also said there is no alternative comprehensive public policy position presented by any party in this House as against Housing for All.

Ms Bacik said, however, that Labour had issued clear proposals. She also highlighted a need for local authorities to buy houses where tenants are in situ. The Taoiseach said 600 tenants in situ houses are in the process of being purchased.

Mr Martin said the Government has brought in a range of actions to increase housing supply. He said targets have been exceeded but more are needed. He added that efforts aimed at getting projects and planning processes delivered in a much faster way would mean that housing can be delivered more quickly, particularly on public land.