Housing will be the main election focus for many political parties today.

As the campaign enters its fifth full day, four parties have housing related launches today looking at city centre populations, dereliction rates and rights for renters. 

The launches comes just as the latest Daft.ie report revealed that average rents across the country are inching towards the €2,000 a month mark. 

In Dublin, it costs €2,476 a month on average to rent a property, while the figure for the rest of the country outside the major cities stands at €1,586.

Daft.ie spokesperson Ronan Lyons said the rental market has to be given a renewed focus whoever is in Government. 

“None of the parties is really talking about how they will increase the supply of rental housing over the course of the next Government,” he said. 

“That’s a concern because the pipeline of new rental housing has not quite dried up yet but it's definitely closing.”

A man holding a bunch of keys. Image: Mark Richardson / Alamy Stock Photo

At the start of this month, there were just over 2,400 homes available to rent on the property website - a decrease of 14% in the space of a year. 

Mr Lyons said this trend is nothing new. 

“It’s significantly down on the pre-COVID average - the late 2010s,” he said. 

“In some parts of the countries, the number of homes available to rent is down 60 or 70% compared to pre-COVID levels.” 

Other issues

Housing will not be the only topic of the campaign today; Sinn Féin plans to focus on workers rights, while People Before Profit will talk about neutrality.

Fine Gael is putting the focus on children by promising a permanent double payment of child benefit in August every year and to extend hot school meals to all schools.

Meanwhile, both the Taoiseach and Tánaiste are preparing for the leaders’ interview circuit to come.

Main image shows Simon Harris, Micheál Martin and Roderic O'Gorman. Image by REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/Pool. 

Reporting by James Wilson and Seán Defoe.