Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the question. I am afraid it is Sinn Féin which is misleading the public on this issue. We know rents are unacceptably high. That is why last week we prioritised in this House legislation that will extend rent pressure zones and rent caps in time but also in geography, that will take away important loopholes that people were abusing, and will for the first time bring in large institutional landlords under rent pressure zones where they were not beforehand.

It is disingenuous of the Deputy to state that rent pressure zones are not working and at the same time support me in extending and improving them. While the Deputy thinks it might be easy to call for a rent freeze, we know from other jurisdictions that while a rent freeze will freeze rents, it will also freeze supply. We have a supply problem in the rent sector, and that is what we are working to address through Rebuilding Ireland. As we fix that supply problem, we are bringing in all these important measures to protect tenants who cannot meet the rents today.

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