Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the news the Government will not be opposing the Labour Party motion. That is welcome. That is constructive. However, not putting down a Government countermotion will be an empty gesture if there is no movement or delivery and no attempt to implement the important measures we have proposed. I agree with the Taoiseach when he says that change is not coming quickly enough.

It is good to hear Government acknowledge that, but the Taoiseach is acknowledging it as if he were a bystander. He is the Taoiseach. He is Taoiseach of a Government that has been in office for four years and, yet, he is still saying that changes are not coming quickly enough. He is still promising the publication of new, more ambitious targets, but it is months since he acknowledged that the targets in Housing for All are simply too low.

I fundamentally disagree with the Taoiseach, as would most people in the country, when he says that Housing for All is working. It is patently not working. Níl sé ag obair. It is simply not working for renters, like the man I heard from who is in his 60s and who is in fear of eviction. That man has no prospect of a secure home of his own. Housing for All is not working for all of those people who cannot find affordable places to rent and who are deeply frustrated when they see the number of short-term lettings advertised on platforms like Airbnb.

Here is a direct question, and it is in the Labour Party's motion: what is the Government going to do to regulate short-term lettings? It is not good enough to simply sit back and wait to see what happens at EU level. What is the Government doing creatively to tackle and regulate the over-preponderance of short-term lettings in our housing market?

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