Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister is always very careful with his words. He said that there is a risk, but that is not what he was saying before when he said it was very likely that there would be a transfer of Exchequer funding directly to landlords. The Taoiseach said that the tax credit would only add to the price of rents and that it would be inflationary. The Minister's officials are telling him that what will happen is that landlords will increase the prices of rents. How come he has made such a U-turn on this issue? We can discuss Berlin if he wants but if the Minister wants to look at a shortage of rental supply, with the number of available properties dropping every year and prices going through the roof, he should look at his own back yard and consider what he has done in government over the last decade. There is no better example of a rental crisis than right here in his own constituency in Dublin. Does he acknowledge now that it is not likely any more and it will not add to the price of rents? Does he dismiss the views of his officials on what is likely to happen on rents as a result of this measure? Does he accept that it will worsen the official rate of rent inflation and reinforce the winners-and-losers phenomenon, and that the rational response of a landlord following the introduction of the relief for tenants will be to increase rents? That is the view of the officials in the Department. Will the Minister explain that to me because he has gone off on this half-cocked? He needs to introduce a ban. That is the only way that the Minister will prevent what his officials have said will happen.

It will end up in the pockets of landlords outside the rent pressure zones.

I have questions about the numbers. The Department does not really have a grasp of the number of beneficiaries entitled to this. Is that not the case? It is guessing here. There is a lot of guessing around these numbers. Maybe the Minister could explain to this committee the rationale behind how the Department came to the figure of 400,000 individuals and how many guesstimates it made along the way. It seems quite bizarre. I have one other question on a section of the Bill but I will come back to that later if that is okay because it is not related to this issue.