Tá teaghlaigh i lár ghéarchéim costas maireachtála agus feictear seo go soiléir i gcuid mhór earnálacha. Feictear go hiontach soiléir é san earnáil chíosa. Chuir géarchéim tithíochta an Rialtais seo glúin amach as úinéireacht tithe. Tá an gnáthchíos anois ag €1,500 sa mhí. Tá daoine ag díol níos mó cíosa i mbliana ná mar a bhídís ag díol anuraidh agus tá tacaíocht de dhíth orthu. Tá Sinn Féin ag moladh chreidmheas cánach dóibh siúd atá ag díol cíosa a gcuirfeadh cíos míosa ar ais ina gcuid pócaí agus coisc ar arduithe cíosa.

The Tánaiste is well aware that we are in the middle of an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis and that every day we are seeing the costs of energy, fuel, childcare and housing go up. Workers and families across the State are struggling and all the while the Government continues to brush aside meaningful proposals that would make a major difference and put money back into people’s pockets.

Nowhere is the cost-of-living crisis more obvious than in the rental market. This is contributing to wider problems in the housing market. Young people cannot afford to save for a deposit, house prices are out of control and there is not enough social and affordable housing being built. An entire generation, because of the Government’s policies, is locked into an unaffordable rental market and locked out of ever being able to afford their own home. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of working people in their late 40s and 50s are living in the private rental sector. They are frightened that they have no way out of that rental market and face a future of pension poverty because of runaway rents. This housing failure is robbing our people of their hopes and dreams for the future.

I know the Tánaiste believes that landlords should be prioritised and their incomes are more important than renters being able to live a decent life. He said as much to the media in August. He said it would be a good idea to introduce a tax cut for landlords, despite the fact that there is little evidence to suggest that such measures will address the causes of the crisis. In fairness, however, he conceded that if he did so, he would do something for renters also. Renters are the people who need to be prioritised. Too often, we talk about rents in terms of percentage increases that we have seen year after year, but if we get down to the hard cash of it, the average new rent in this State is now just below €1,500 per month, with rents in Dublin now over €2,000. Because of runaway rents, new renters will a fork out €1,476 more this year to their landlord than they would have done last year. Renters need relief. As the Tánaiste will know, Sinn Féin has been calling on the Government year after year to provide support for renters. We have proposed for years a refundable tax credit that would put one month’s rent back into renters’ pockets, reducing their rental costs and lifting some of the burden from them. That would make a real difference to so many people. Of course, any support like this must make a difference to the renters who are hard pressed and must not be pocketed by landlords through further rent hikes. That is why this measure needs to be accompanied by a ban on rent increases.

Renters are being fleeced. Runaway rents need to stop. Renters can be supported and runaway rents can be tackled. However, it is the Government’s choice. The budget is just days away. I ask the Tánaiste, on behalf of renters right across the State who are feeling so much pressure and have seen their rents go up year after year without support or action from this Government, if the Government will now, belatedly at this final hour, adopt Sinn Féin’s plan to support renters by putting one’s month rent back into renters’ pockets and banning further rent increases - to reduce rents and to freeze them.

I thank the Deputy for raising the important issue of the very high cost of rent in Ireland, which is out of kilter and disproportionate when compared with our peer countries. I acknowledge that. What the Deputy has said about what I have said in the past is not the case. I have never said that landlords should be prioritised. A little like the Deputy’s leader, Deputy Doherty would not win any truth-telling contests. I did not say that. It is at best at misrepresentation and perhaps a fabrication, and I hope the Deputy will acknowledge that in his further response.

What I am interested in talking about is solutions. There are a number of solutions to the housing crisis that we now face and a number of things that we can do to help renters. Probably the most important and significant thing is increasing and ramping up the amount of social housing we have in Ireland. As the Deputy will know, we are probably going to break records in terms of the number of new social houses provided in Ireland this year. We are getting up to the kinds of figures we have not seen since the 1970s, if not before. Social housing benefits everyone. It takes people off the housing list and also frees up private accommodation for other people to rent and buy, thus exerting downward pressure on rents and property prices. That is why we are investing so much in new social housing and why we will continue to do so in the years ahead.

The other area is cost-rental housing. This programme was started by the former Minister, Eoghan Murphy, under the previous Government but is now for real. We see the huge demand for cost-rental housing and how interested people are in that form of public housing. We need to see that scaled up as much as is humanly possible over the next couple of years.

We also have the help-to-buy scheme, a programme that has helped over 30,000 young people and young couples to buy their first home, often leaving rental accommodation and freeing it up for others. This is something the Deputy’s party opposes, wrongly in my view. I hope in Sinn Féin’s alternative budget it will consider dropping its opposition to the help-to-buy scheme. It is the most important thing we can do for first-time buyers at the moment. Saying to first-time buyers that we will not give them the €30,000 back to help their deposit, but instead we will give them €1,000 or €1,500 to help with their rent is not a good deal. That is what Sinn Féin would do. It would take the €30,000 away from first-time buyers and give them €1,500 a year to help with their rent. That is not a good deal and I hope Sinn Féin will drop its opposition to the help-to-buy scheme.

We also have the rent pressure zones which, as the Deputy will know, for tens of thousands of people, if not hundreds of thousands of people, have meant that rent increases have been 2% or lower. That does not show up in areas like the daft.ie index for example, as the Deputy knows, but has been of great relief to many people who are renting in this city and country. It has had negative consequences too. It has probably had a negative impact on supply and has perhaps driven up rents when it comes to new tenancies. That is something that we need to be concerned about.

In terms of budget measures and the Deputy’s suggestion of a credit for renters, that is a budget matter and it would not be appropriate for me today to comment on decisions that will be announced by the Minister of Finance, Deputy Donohoe, and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, next week. However, as is the case with all proposals, they will be considered and a decision will made by the Government in due course.

We have been having this conversation now for years and I feel that at some stage the penny might drop because every year we see all the statistics go in the wrong direction. When new rents are going up by 9.2% a year and house prices are going up by 14%, how far does rent have to go before the Tánaiste starts to realise the Government’s policies are actually contributing to this problem in the first instance? He talks about social housing, on which the Government will not meet its own targets. He talks about cost-rental housing, on which the Government is only delivering 300 units and is not meeting its targets either. Moreover, these are low targets that are inadequate given what is needed.

Sinn Féin puts forward proposals year after year that will actually help renters. Renters are paying nearly €1,500 more than they were last year and before that, they were paying more than they paid the year before that, and the same in the years before that. There are so many people are locked into a situation and do not know how they will get out of it. The other arm of Government policy means house prices are being pushed up beyond the Celtic tiger peak. There is a very simple proposal that we have been calling on the Government to introduce, and that is a refundable tax credit equivalent to a month’s rent of up to €1,500-----

The Deputy’s time is up.

-----which would put that money back into renters’ pockets, and a ban on rent increases for the next three years. Is that something the Government will entertain because the Tánaiste has been stating publicly that he wants cuts for landlords?

The only thing I have said about landlords - and I stand over it and I have made this very clear - is that if there are any tax concessions for landlords in the budget, there should also be tax concessions for renters. That is what I said and what I meant, and I stand over that comment. If there are concessions for landlords in the budget, there should also be tax concessions for renters. That is what I said and I stand over it.

Any specific decisions are a matter for budget day, not today. There will be meetings today and over the weekend to finalise the budget package. What I will say to the Deputy, and it is important that we are frank and honest with people about what is happening in our country and around the world, is that there are bigger trends at play here, not least demographics and the cost of building new housing. North of the Border, where the Deputy's party has been in office now for a very long time, house prices have also gone up. They have gone up by 20% in two years and rents are rising as well. That is a place where there is a Sinn Féin housing minister and finance minister. It would be very easy for me to repeat the kind of charges the Deputy makes against us-----

The Tánaiste's time is up.

-----that when things happen it is always the Government's fault. Is it not Sinn Féin’s fault in Northern Ireland therefore as well?