Rory Hearne

Well, Clare, I said that before we even knew about these rents.

And I said it because we have reached the highest level of evictions in this country since the famine.

7,000 households were evicted from the private rental sector in the first quarter of this year.

We've record rents, record homelessness.

In my own constituency, from Ballymun to Artane, people are just...

they're at the end of their tether in terms of you've got multiple households living in houses, overcrowding,

We're knocking on doors in the last while for the by-elections, literally people in tears breaking down, saying their children were leaving because they just saw no future in this country.

People in tears breaking down.

I had one woman yesterday breaking down, crying because she's got cancer, she's in her 60s, she's being evicted.

And she said, how can I go into emergency accommodation with a colostomy bag?

And this is the human reality of what is happening out there

And this was, as I said last night, I was just so frustrated.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have refused to listen to the opposition, to the people about what is going on in terms of this housing disaster.

And when we look at it, the rent measures that have shown now today, the DAFT report has shown very, very clearly

they have made a disaster into a catastrophe.

And the author of the report, Rona Lyons, makes it very clear that these new rental measures have led to these rent rises, the highest increase in rents in 25 years.

Rents now, and just to give your listeners some context,

Rents in Dublin now, 2,600 a month is the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment.

Well, I suppose our approach is quite different in that, again, and I want to make it very clear, the Social Democrats are not against private investment in housing.

And this kind of is thrown at us in the Dáil by the Taoiseach and others all the time.