Kerry Sinn Féin TD Martin Ferris called on his constituency colleagues to support his party’s Rent Certainty Bill which was voted on in the Dáil during the week.
Fianna Fáil had signalled that it will vote with Fine Gael and government Independents to reject rent certainty which will condemn more renters to homelessness.
“The Sinn Féin Bill sought to link rents to the consumer price index as a way of preventing extortionate increases in private rents which are forcing families into homelessness every day,” Deputy Ferris said as he urged all TDs to support the bill.
Shoulder-to-Shoulder
However, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and the supporting independents stood shoulder-to-shoulder to defeat the bill.
“The government’s response to this has been to stall and wait for a committee report due out at the end of this week. But the reality is that the recommendations of that report will take at least six months to be implemented,” said Mr. Ferris.
“That is simply not good enough when we are in the middle of a crisis which is seeing people made homeless every day.
Contact Constituency Offices
“There is hardly a day goes by that my constituency offices are not contacted by people who are about to become, or are in fact, homeless. We as elected TDs have a responsibility to the vast number of families caught up in this housing crisis.”
“The government and Fianna Fáil should stop stalling on this vitally important issue. We need action now. That is why I appealed to my constituency colleagues to vote in support of the Sinn Féin Bill and to lobby their party leadership to see the logic in that position,” he said.
