People Before Profit representative Adrian Curran has called on the government to implement real rent controls and cut rents to bring them back to affordable levels.
The party’s Galway representative was commenting following the launch of Budget 2022, which he said had nothing for renters.
“There was nothing in this budget to deal with the extortionate increase in rents, or the pitifully low delivery of public and affordable housing on public land, which is essential to bring us out of the worst housing and homelessness crisis this state has seen,” said Adrian Curran.
“What we need are radical policies to deal with this crisis which is hammering ordinary people.
“Instead, we have a government that is currently allowing rents to rise with the rate of inflation. Yet inflation is set to go to 4% this year.”
Curran said that this will place an undue burden on tenants who are already paying extortionate rents.
He added that his party would take the urgent action of actually intervening in the rental market by cutting rents to affordable levels.
“We would immediately freeze rents and then set up a system whereby tenants could make a claim for rent reductions,” he said.
“We would implement proper rent controls so those rents cannot spiral out of control as they are currently.”
