It is getting harder and harder to own a home every year this Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael coalition is in power. Government is continuously missing housing targets. The prices of houses are soaring. Rents have also reached new highs nationally and are only set to get worse from 1 March, following the Government's disastrous legislation last week. Sinn Féin has continuously and repeatedly offered a solution to help with home ownership. Many will remember a particularly nasty, grim episode from my own constituency of Kildare North when an investment fund sought to purchase 135 homes in Mullen Park in Maynooth. That left a nasty taste in everybody's mouth, I can tell you. The Government's policies have actively driven up prices even further on houses that young people were trying to purchase, locking ordinary families and workers out of new homes in the area. The Government's response to this was to apply a measly 10% levy to those vulture funds on the purchase of ten or more homes. This did not work, along with all of the Government's subsequent attempts to try to solve the housing crisis. None of them is working. House prices only continue to soar year on year in Maynooth and all across my constituency and the State. In Maynooth, the average price for a three-bed second-hand home is up 8% to almost €500,000 - half a million euro to put a roof over your head. It is absolutely crazy. The same can be said for Celbridge, Leixlip and Naas, where house prices have gone up 12% in the past year. The social contract is well and truly broken for people. What chance do young people have? The Government is only short of packing their bags and driving them to the airport. Once more, Sinn Féin is offering a fix here but the Minister just will not take it. Sometimes I wonder whether the Minister actually attend his constituency clinics at all. Does he not hear this week in, week out? It is all that comes into my office every Monday and Friday and on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, my secretary is left to deal with it. The Government can ban vulture funds from snapping up family homes and give young people and families a chance to build a decent life here in Ireland.

Sentiment score: -0.13