The Government has failed an entire generation of young people. It should not be surprised if they exact their revenge at the next election.

This week, we had another Daft.ie report revealing more record-breaking rents. Those in Dublin are now 41.5pc higher than the previous Celtic Tiger peak, with rents in other parts of the country following close behind.

Noting a "remarkable phase of price growth" in the rental market, the report found rents in Dublin have more than doubled since 2010. By contrast, rents in Germany, France and the UK increased by 18pc, 19pc and 33pc respectively between 2006 and 2019, while rents in the EU as a whole increased by 25pc.

To put this into perspective, no other generation has endured such a prolonged period of incessant rental increases. It is unprecedented in the history of the State.

"Since World War II, I can find only three phases where rents increased for more than four years... the current upswing in rents has lasted almost nine years and counting in Dublin," said economist Ronan Lyons, the report's author.

While rents have ballooned, people's income has not kept pace with these increases. A study last year by the Irish Tax Institute revealed people were paying more tax than a decade ago. It found the net pay of single-income earners on €35,000 was down 3pc, or €964, compared to 2008 while those on €120,000 were 9pc, or €6,679, worse off. Families on €35,000, with two incomes, were down 3pc, or €1,928, while double-income families with an income of €75,000 were 5pc, or €5,590, worse off.

So, if you feel like you are constantly broke, despite reading cheery headlines about economic recovery and record tax takes, that's because you are.

Meanwhile, what is often overlooked is that Ireland still has among the highest proportion of low-paid workers in the developed world. Around 23pc of Ireland's full-time workforce, or 100,000 people, earn less than two-thirds of median earnings, which were €42,889 in 2018. Factor in the loss of the meagre tax credit that those renting used to be able to avail of, and the affordability gap becomes even more pronounced.

The inability of the Government to tackle this crisis, or even begin to grapple with it, has been one of the biggest public policy failures in modern times. Given nearly a million people are now renting, this failure is also a stunning act of political self-sabotage. Why would anyone who is renting, and subject to the kind of exorbitant rents and never-ending increases that have become normalised for the past decade, ever vote for Fine Gael? Turkeys are not in the habit of voting for Christmas.

The mantra from Government ministers this week, attempting to find a chink of light in the damning Daft.ie report, was that the rate of rental increase has now slowed from double-digit figures to "just" 5.2pc. Guess what? Year-on-year increases of 5.2pc, when the rate of inflation is 0.7pc, is nothing to crow about. Those kinds of increases, on top of already record-breaking rents, are not sustainable.

The level of dissociation from reality in government circles, in their public commentary, only compounds the problem and causes further anger.

In August, Education Minister Joe McHugh said families who could not afford to send their children to college in cities should consider "regional options" - the modern day version of "to hell or to Connacht". Forget your dream of studying law, medicine or pharmacy. Those dreams are now contingent on parents' ability to subsidise their children's rent.

Meanwhile, in July, Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy labelled the prospect of renting a box room in "trendy" co-living developments, at €1,300 per month, an "exciting" choice for young workers.

What planet are these people living on? Do they have any comprehension of the kind of despair and stress the rental crisis is causing? Do they have any credible plan to do anything about it - other than to keep bleating about the importance of increasing supply, as they have done since 2014?

All across the country, people are stuck in cramped and unsuitable accommodation, young people are being prevented from truly starting their adult life because they can't afford to move out of their parents' homes and workers are being forced to move out of cities and endure lengthy commutes.

The unparalleled nature of the problem demands a radical response. Yet, the Government has doggedly stuck to its 2016 Rebuilding Ireland plan, refusing to countenance taking any alternative action while rents, and the numbers of homeless people, continue to spiral.

Even when the Government tries to take action, it somehow manages to botch it. On Monday, it was revealed that new regulations for short-term lets, which took nearly three years to be introduced after they started life in a working group in 2016, are not worth the paper they are written on.

Since July, those renting out entire properties on websites such as Airbnb have required planning permission. To date, just 16 such applications have been made throughout the entire country. Why would anybody bother applying for planning permission when there is no real prospect of being found in breach of the regulations?

The Government introduced these measures with great fanfare but failed to provide almost any resources to the local authorities which are tasked with enforcing them. So it's business as usual in the short-term letting market.

Another mess is the Government's introduction of fast-track planning permission for large-scale developments. To date, 15,000 units have been approved under the scheme, but construction has yet to start on two-thirds of them. The suspicion is that planning is being secured so that land values increase, resulting in a financial windfall for landowners and property developers.

Most damningly, despite the fact house prices in Dublin are now more than nine times the average salary, not a single affordable housing scheme or affordable rental scheme has been delivered by this Government.

Until the Government accepts the private market cannot solve this problem, it will continue to deteriorate. What is needed, at this late stage, is a State response that is commensurate with the scale of the crisis - a massive programme of social and affordable home building on public land.

The only thing standing in the way is the ideological myopia of the Government, which prefers to spend hundreds of millions of euro in payments to private landlords than to properly resource construction of social housing.

When an election is called, as it will be in the next six months, those living with the reality of the housing crisis are unlikely to greet Fine Gael canvassers with any warmth. Revenge is dish best served cold.

Irish Independent