The phenomenon of spiralling rents in Galway city is a “sobering reminder” that the current government does not have the political will to deal with what is now a “crisis".
This is the view of People Before Profit Galway representative, Adrian Curran, who was speaking following the recent Daft.ie report, which found that rents were 18.8 per cent higher in County Galway, and 8.3 per cent higher in Galway city in 2021, compared to the same period last year.
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“The Daft report shows us that this Government has neither the ability, nor the political will, to tackle the rental crisis,” said Mr Curran. “This crisis has been going on for well over a decade where working people are at the pin of their collars to make the rent each month, and where many simply could not afford the rents being charged, resulting in homelessness or dire family overcrowding.”
The report also showed that the current quarter has the lowest stock of properties available to rent since 2006. In the context of all this, Mr Curran described as “unbelievable” the Government's response of allowing continued rent increases of two per cent.
“Rents are already unaffordable, increasing them further will obviously make matters even worse for renters,” he said. “We have gone past the point where a rent freeze is the solution. What people need are rent reductions.”
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Mr Curran said what is needed is the establishment of a rents authority, with the power set and reduce rents to bring them back to affordable levels; and for rents to be reset at levels linked to an affordable proportion of average incomes.
"Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and the Greens represent the minority who are profiting from the housing crisis,” said Mr Curran. “We need to replace them with a Government that will fight for the majority in this country who are suffering from the crisis."
