Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Fine Gael has been in government for 13 years. In that time, homeownership has collapsed and 40% of people in their 30s are still living in their family homes. We know that, as of March, nearly 14,000 people were accessing emergency accommodation. More than 4,000 of these people were children.

Due to the actions and inaction of the current Government, workers and families cannot afford to buy and they cannot afford to rent. It is a vicious cycle. In my constituency, house prices have risen by 6% in Cavan and 10% in Monaghan over the past year. Year on year, rents for new tenancies have increased by 20.9% in Cavan and 13.4% in Monaghan.

I come across people all the time who are trapped in rental situations. They cannot show consistent savings because the rent is so high. As a result, they cannot get mortgage approval. They might be able to obtain a deposit somehow, but they cannot get a mortgage. Even though the rent they are paying is considerably higher than a mortgage would be, they are trapped in that situation. Other people I encounter are refusing additional hours of work because they want to remain below the social housing threshold. They know that if they go above that, they will not be able to afford rent. It is not fair.

In April, the Minister launched what is supposed to become a quarterly housing progress report. In that report, there was no update on social and affordable homes to rent or affordable purchase houses delivered in the first quarter of this year. This does not surprise me because there are no affordable houses in County Cavan. I questioned the local authority about this and was informed that are no such houses available. That leaves a range of people who cannot afford to rent and cannot afford to buy.

Sinn Féin has a plan to deliver an affordable housing scheme that workers and families can afford and that will enable councils and housing bodies to build homes that people can buy at or near the cost of construction, excluding the land-related costs. It will be open to those with a gross household income of up to €85,000. Therefore, people do not have to refuse work to stay below a social income threshold in order to live. The housing crisis will only be fixed when the cost of houses and rents are brought down by increasing supply. We are losing our young, educated and skilled staff, especially in the healthcare and social professions - our teachers and nurses - because they cannot afford to live here due to housing.

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