Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am not sure I was quoted accurately on that. I do not believe this is about weighing up the balance between landlords and renters as if it is one versus the other. People need places to rent. If we do not have more places to rent, there will be longer queues of people trying to get rental properties and renters will pay higher rents. We need more landlords in the market in order to increase availability and reduce rents. We have lost about 40,000 landlords from the market in the past couple of years. We need to turn that around and stem the tide of landlords leaving. More importantly, we need to encourage more landlords to come back in. It is our assessment that if we had extended the moratorium, it would have made matters worse in the medium term, not better.

I have heard what Opposition parties have said. I heard the Labour Party say today that it would extend it for a few months. I heard Sinn Féin say it would extend it until the end of the year. Do we really believe it is credible things would change so much by September, October or the end of the year that we would be able to lift this ban? I do not think anyone honestly believes that.

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