Laois Offaly TD brands rental crisis a 'living nightmare'
A Laois Offaly TD has described the collapse of the housing rental market as a ‘living nightmare’ for people.
Independent TD Carol Nolan has described rental price increases across the constituency as a source of unimaginable stress and anxiety for families and renters.
She was speaking after the latest report from Daft.ie on the national Daft Rental Price for Q2 2022 revealed the highest year-on-year increase in market rents since the launch of the Daft Report in 2005.
In Offaly the average rent now stands at €1,194. This represents a 13.9% increase from the same point last year. In Laois, the Average rent is now €1,204. This represents a 10.8% increase.
The Independent TD said the housing crisis and rental price increases are “wiping out people’s capacity to even consider saving for a mortgage.”
“The scale of this crisis is almost surreal. Every single day that my offices are open we are hearing from people desperately clinging on to their homes. They are being broken by a relentlessly cruel and dysfunctional housing market that is simply incapable of meeting their needs.”
“When you add the rent price increases to the skyrocketing cost of living and back to school costs, you have a perfect storm of hardship in terms of fuel and food poverty being thrown into the mix.”
“Government simply has not delivered housing at the kind of scale and ambition that is needed. Instead, it has chosen to pursue policies that are indirectly, but categorically, having an adverse impact on availability, such as the promotion of offering own-door accommodation within four months, from the state, to anyone who arrives here from anywhere in the world seeking international protection.”
“This approach serves no one. We are placing our own people under dire social and financial stress and displaced persons on to the floors of hotels or converted buildings,” said Deputy Nolan.
She insisted the “Government must pull out all the stops to escalate and fast track delivery of housing, both social and affordable, and this includes immediately revising the labyrinthine and bureaucratic mess that is the planning process.”