Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

And your rhetoric certainly will not solve it either. Proposing to abolish all of the schemes that we put in place that help people to move out of the box room and into their own homes certainly will not make progress either.

I have answered the question very clearly in relation to long-term leasing and the Government's plan to end that by 31 December 2025. That is the Government position, it was the Government position and it remains the Government position.

Far from the Ireland that Deputy McDonald paints, here is the Ireland that many people looking to buy a home and looking to rent live in today. They live in an Ireland where their Government has just decided to extend the rent pressure zones for a further year. They live in an Ireland where there is a renters tax credit in place and a wish to do more on that to help meet the cost of rent and help people save for a deposit. They live in an Ireland where 500 people a week now buy their first home. They live in a country where 337 new homes are going to construction every single working day, which is around 29,000 homes so far this year. They live in a country where there is help-to-buy, an initiative giving some of their own money back, which Deputy McDonald opposes. They live in an Ireland where there are more social homes being built now than at any time since the 1970s.

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