Election 2024: Mary Lou McDonald says Sinn Féin-led government would cut rents and ban rent increases for three years

The general election campaign is in its sixth day, with Taoiseach Simon Harris promising, in an Instagram video, a permanent double child benefit in August to help parents with the back-to-school costs. More on that below.
We’ll bring you all the updates from the campaign trail, including People Before Profit’s election manifesto commitments to protect neutrality, Fianna Fáil’s proposals to get more people back living in our city centres and more.
Our reporters will be attending press conferences for live updates.
Virgin Media Television is set to hold The Big Interview with the three main party leaders, at 10pm each Wednesday of the general election campaign. We’ll bring you updates on that later.
Key reads:
Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald said the “Free State establishment” needs to move on from holding her party accountable for the actions of the Provisional IRA during the Troubles.
She suggested in a podcast interview it was not rational or fair to raise Provisional IRA actions with party members who were children or not alive when the actions took place.
Podcast presenter Joe Brolly raised what he called the “continued demonisation” of Sinn Féin and suggested that party members were forced to defend the actions of the Provos in the 1970s.
She responded by stating there was a “reluctance on the part of the Free State establishment to move on”.
“You don’t ask somebody who was a baby in the 1970s about something that happened in the 1970s. That’s not a reasonable proposition. You wouldn’t ask it of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or the Labour Party.
“It is not reasonable to approach people from Sinn Féin in that way. We can debate history. We can talk about the past.”
You can read the full report here.
Sinn Féin has spent €91,000 on advertising with online platforms over the past four months as the general election loomed, more than the other political parties combined.
Overall, the main political parties, including Sinn Féin, have spent a combined sum of €162,168 on online advertising since August.Meta – which owns Facebook and Instagram – and search giant Google have online tools that offer information on political advertising including expenditure.
You can read all about it in our report here.
In today’s Election Daily podcast, Hugh Linehan, Jack Horgan-Jones and Jennifer Bray discuss Eoghan Murphy’s frank account of how his party ‘didn’t make housing a priority’ and whether it could be damaging for Fine Gael.
Housing will be a central issue in this election.
Opposition parties have announced their plans to support renters if in government, with Mary Lou McDonald saying a Sinn Féin-led government would cut rents and ban rent increases for three years.
Ms McDonald was responding to the latest report from Daft, which shows that average statewide rent is now hitting €1,955 a month.
“We will begin by cutting rents by putting a month’s rent back into the pockets of renters and we will ban rent increases for three years. We will also deliver homes to buy and to rent at affordable rates and on a scale needed to meet this crisis head on,” the Sinn Féin Leader said, while on the campaign trail today in Cork North West.
“The refusal of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to implement a ban on rent increases has been disastrous. In the last four years average new rents have increased by €6000 a year. That is deeply shocking. Many renters should be in a position to buy their own home. Instead, the average age to buy a first home is now 39”.
Meanwhile, the Social Democrats published their 10-point plan to make life better for renters.
Launched by Rory Hearne, the Social Democrats candidate in Dublin North-West, and Róisín Shortall, the party’s finance spokesperson, it commits to building 25,000 affordable rental homes over a five-year period, with average rents in Dublin of €1,200 per month and €1,000 per month for the rest of the country.
In government, the party said it would introduce a three-year rent freeze and put an end to no-fault evictions. It would also create a rent register to clamp down on illegal rent increases.
Other proposed measures include a ban on vulture funds buying up existing houses and apartments; the enactment of legislation to make sex-for-rent a criminal office; and empowering gardaí to intervene in illegal evictions.
The last nine days have seen 110,000 people register to vote for the first time and a further 50,000 people updated their addresses, according to the Electoral Commission.
The surge in registrations comes after a campaign to encourage people to check the register by the commission, which is overseeing a general election for the first time.
More than 134,000 people have registered to vote since the beginning of September, while over 63,000 have updated their registrations.
The deadline for registrations was yesterday. About 3.5 million people are eligible to vote in the election.
One of Fianna Fáil’s candidates has expressed concern about its proposal to decriminalise drugs. Dr Martin Daly is the party’s candidate in Roscommon-Galway and is a GP in Ballygar, Co Galway.
Speaking on Shannonside radio yesterday, Dr Daly was asked about his party’s proposal to decriminalisation. He expressed concern about the proposal due to the impact of drugs on young people’s mental health.
“I have mixed feelings on it. I think there are pros and cons to it,” he said.
“I think it has been clarified that we are talking about the soft drugs like marijuana and hash. There certainly is a whole criminal industry has grown up around the supply of drugs.”
“One of the concerns I have about it is some of the new stronger forms of hashish leading to serious mental health problems in our younger people. We have a deluge of drugs in this country.”
Hashish and marijuana were not the biggest issues, he added.
As a GP in a rural area, Dr Daly said he had parents “who are dealing with cocaine dealers, for the first time in their lives, dealing with criminal fraternity and being threatened in their own homes, telling parents that ‘young John owes us €3,000, this week and we’re coming asking for it. Next week we’re breaking windows. The following week we’re breaking legs’.”
“Cocaine is not a drug to be messed with. It is highly addictive and it is wreaking havoc on our young people”.
Green Party director of elections Pauline O’Reilly has delivered a letter to director general of RTÉ Kevin Bakhurst, asking him to host a TV debate on climate change along the lines of other debates on priority issues.
“Over the last number of years, RTÉ has been relied upon by the Irish public to provide critical information and context on how, before our eyes, our climate is changing and the devastating effects that come with that, at home and around the world – from Midleton to Valencia,” the letter said.
In this, RTÉ had “never failed to bring the truth of climate breakdown out and into our national discourse”, it continued.
“Given RTÉ’s stated commitment to informing and engaging the public on climate change, and knowing our national broadcaster’s strong record here, it is very hard to understand the reasoning not to hold a debate on climate change in a General Election, the most crucial of times.”
People Before Profit (PBP) say that they will “defend Ireland’s neutrality” by withdrawing from EU military co-operation and from Nato’s Partnership for Peace and “call for peace talks” in Ukraine rather than supporting “EU efforts to intensify war”, our political editor Pat Leahy reports.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been “chipping away at Ireland’s neutrality” for many years, Mr Boyd-Barrett said, most obviously through facilitating the transit of US troops through Shannon Airport.
Mr Boyd-Barrett said that in a “left government that could offer an alternative to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael”, PBP would “vigorously defend Ireland’s neutrality and restore Ireland’s neutrality”.
Asked if by opposing EU support for Ukraine, he was essentially advocating that Ukraine should trade territory for peace with Russia, Mr Boyd-Barrett compared the situation with British sovereignty over Northern Ireland.
“Most people in this country in nearly every political party have an aspiration for a united Ireland, but we’ve all concluded that won’t be achieved through military means. So the fact that we don’t pursue a united Ireland through military means doesn’t mean we’re not in favour of a united Ireland,” he said.
“So, equally, saying that there is no military solution to the scary conflict and the terrible conflict that has been initiated by Russia in Ukraine does not mean we think that there is anything legitimate and justified by what Russian has done.”
More from Sinn Féin’s media briefing this morning…
Addressing the nation’s problems with the provision of infrastructure and housing will ensure Ireland remains an attractive place for major multinationals to invest and matter far more to them than any future obligation to recognise trade unions in their Irish operations, the Sinn Féin spokesperson on Enterprise and Employment said.
Louise O’Reilly said the party would legislate to substantially expand collective bargaining in the workplace and oblige employers to deal directly with unions representing their workers, key priorities for the union movement in which Ms O’Reilly was previously employed.
The election of Donald Trump to the US presidency and the related concerns regarding future foreign direct investment in Ireland would not change the party’s position on that, she said.
“The biggest threat to our competitiveness is actually the failings by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in terms of infrastructure and housing,” she said.
“You talk to the American chamber, you talk to Ibec, and they will tell you that. That is the feedback that we very, very clearly get from them. What we need to do is we need to ensure that we address that infrastructure investment and that we end the housing crisis. Those two things will massively contribute to making this a more secure and more attractive place to invest.
“And let’s not forget, we have dealt with a Trump administration previously, so it’s not beyond us to deal with that again.”
After MichaelO’Learygate, Sinn Féin have sought to underline its affection for teachers while holding a briefing on their proposals in the area of workers’ rights at the Teachers’ Club on Parnell Square, which our correspondent Emmet Malone attended.
The party’s education spokesperson, Sorca Clarke, said Sinn Féin would remove barriers preventing people seeking to enter the profession, restore the post of responsibility lost in schools in the wake of the economic crash and ensure that young teachers were able to progress to full-time permanent jobs much more quickly than at present.
She also said a Sinn Féin government would ensure that teachers returning to the system here from spells abroad would receive “full incremental credit” for the time they had spent teaching in the likes of the Middle East, something repeatedly sought by unions in the sector.
“We want them to come back,” she said.
Childcare costs and availability is coming up frequently on doors everywhere in the country. That’s why parties have been busy in recent months coming up with separate proposals.
It was the turn of Fine Gael this morning, Harry McGee reports.
The main plank of its childcare proposal is to cap costs at €200 per month per child, or €600 for a family with more than three children. It has also promised an additional 30,000 early learning places as well as opening 100 new State-run childcare facilities by 2026.
The policy also promises an extra hour of free care each day under the ECCE scheme (Early Childhood Care and Education).
The other eye-catching proposal – which we have already featured on our live coverage – is its plan to provide an additional childcare benefit payment each August, just before school returns.
Like other parties, it is also committing to offer hot meals in all schools, as well as providing holiday meal support for families that might need such support during the school holidays.
If you compare its pledges with its rivals, there are many similar elements. There is no doubt that this will be a big issue in the election.
At the press conference, unveiling the policy, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee also said the party would not only raise the rate of child benefit but examine a second tier of child benefit (presumably means-tested).
“We will offer pay-related rates of parents’ benefit to ensure that when parents are deciding to take parental leave, that the financial implications are not a factor.
“Again, we’re seeing that people are not taking parental leave because it’s not financially viable for them,” she said.
The party’s spokesman on children, Neale Richmond, acknowledged there was a lot of concern about the lack of places. “I’ve had far too many conversations, particularly with mums, who said: ‘We have just come out of our 20-week scan and we’re already getting on to the childcare providers’. That should not be like that.”
Fianna Fáil has accused the Green Party of putting additional hurdles in front of first-time buyers in its general election manifesto, Jack Horgan-Jones reports.
Fianna Fáil TD for Fingal Darragh O’Brien, who is also Minister for Housing, said he had concerns about a proposal on the future of the Government’s Help to Buy scheme.
Mr O’Brien said he welcomed constructive input on housing policy but rounded on the Greens’ proposal, which would introduce price caps for properties eligible for the tax-refund measure depending on which county the home is located in.
“What I don’t welcome is any reduction in the support for first-time buyers,” he said, adding that it seemed to him the party is “putting additional conditions and hurdles for first-time buyers by bringing in price variations across the country”.
“I don’t see how it would help a first-time buyer in other parts of the country by reducing access to the grants,” he said. Mr O’Brien would not directly address whether the Green Party proposal violated the Fianna Fáil ‘red line’ that the Help to Buy scheme must be retained in programme for government negotiations.
Mr O’Brien said he expected 41,000 homes would be built next year, in line with targets agreed by the outgoing Government last week, and claimed there are 26,000 social homes in the development pipeline now.
A number of general election posters were set on fire in Limerick last night.
The incidents happened in the village of Castleconnell.
It’s understood a unit of the fire service was called to the scene of the incident, which happened on main street at about 8.30pm.
Speaking to Live 95 News, Fianna Fáil candidate Dee Ryan, whose poster was one of those set alight, said she “wasn’t surprised to see what happened this evening”.
“Antisocial behaviour and crime is coming up on the doors as a huge concern for people living in Annacotty, Castleconnell and Castletroy,” she said.
“We urgently need more visible policing in these areas, we need increased Garda numbers in Limerick and a Garda station in Castletroy to tackle these issues head on”.
Fine Gael have posted a video on X in which schoolchildren interview the Taoiseach about plans to help parents with the cost of raising a family…
“I want to extend hot school meals to every school in the country,” Harris says.
“What, like broccoli?” one kid replies.
Election posters have been a hot topic already this year, with complaints of them being damaged, stolen or incorrectly placed.
This year, someone is putting googly eyes on the election posters in Co Cork, as spotted by this user on X.
Taoiseach Simon Harris has promised an additional yearly double child benefit in advance of children returning to school. In a video posted on Instagram this morning, he said his party wanted to help parents with the cost-of-living challenges associated with that time of year.
“This morning Fine Gael is proposing that we would have a permanent additional child benefit every August to help people with the costs of going back to school,” he said.
“I know from travelling right across the country, the cost-of-living challenges are real. The cost of raising a child is real”.