Reports that international students are being pressured for sex in return for rent-free housing are “surely a new low”, the leader of Sinn Féin has said.
It comes after a survey from the Irish Council of International Students found that 5 per cent of female respondents said they had either received an offer to rent a room in Ireland in exchange for sex, or had seen a room advertised in exchange for sex.
A total of 512 people from 64 countries took part in the survey.
Mary Lou McDonald raised the report during Leaders’ Questions on Wednesday, where she said the Government’s housing plan is “in freefall”.
She said: “The Government has this scattered, frantic, directionless approach where it is talking about everything but dealing with nothing.”
Ms McDonald also criticised a Government plan to “relax planning rules to allow people to build cabins in the bottom of their gardens”.
The Government is considering relaxing exemptions for extensions at the rear of properties.
The Programme for Government committed to examining exemptions which allow development of 40-square-metre extensions attached to the rear of a main house. Anything above 40 square metres requires planning permission.
The new proposal could allow the dwellings to be built anywhere at the rear of the building, allowing for freestanding “cabins”.
Minister of State for Planning John Cummins has said this could be a “practical and common-sense” option that would suit people in certain circumstances such as younger adults who want to live independently from the main family house.
While acknowledging a need for “greater flexibility”, Ms McDonald said: “To cast this up as the solution to the housing crisis simply highlights just how broken and how failed the Government’s response to the housing crisis is.”
Mr Cummins has stressed he does not consider the measure to be a “panacea” for the housing crisis.
In response to Ms McDonald, Taoiseach Micheal Martin said there has been progress on housing since 2020.
He said: “We went from 20,000 a year to over 30,000 a year. We exceeded the targets that were set in Housing for All, which were realistic targets taking variable factors into account.
“Given, however, the rise in the Irish population and the growth of our country, it is not enough, and I acknowledge that.”
Mr Martin said the Government had recently announced a further €450 million in additional funding for social, affordable and cost-rental homes.
He added that the Government was establishing a new strategic housing initiative office and publishing a national planning framework to allow the zoning of “much more land” for house construction.
“We are hitting the ground running as regards the housing agenda.”
Ms McDonald also said Mr Martin had “spoofed” on housing delivery during the election campaign.
She was referring to comments from senior party figure who said 40,000 homes would be delivered last year, despite CSO data revealing the figure to be 30,330.
She added: “He presented a work of fiction. It was fact flexibility from Fianna Fáil. What a novel thing – not.”
