Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has no substance to her policies and she has no solutions to the housing problem. Sinn Féin wants a blanket ban on evictions and a rent freeze for another six months only with no focus at all on what that will do in growing the number of houses that are available to rent. I told the Deputy earlier that 3,857 fewer houses are available for rent in 2020. That is a significant contraction in the market. The Deputy seems to want to push it down even more and make fewer houses available. Sinn Féin does not really have a coherent medium-term housing policy and it seems always to want to exploit the housing issue. We need supply and to build more houses. The cost rental initiative the Minister has introduced, which will provide up to 500 houses this year at 25% below market value, is the type of initiative we need. We need to increase dramatically those numbers.

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