Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

The so-called rent reform plan the Government announced yesterday is a shambles The Taoiseach is literally all over the place, confused by his own back-of-the-envelope proposal and unclear as to what he is saying. There is one thing that is clear - the Government's plan will push up rents even further. It is only a question of when renters will be hit. The Government will allow landlords themselves to set a market rate for rent. After 1 March and throughout the course of next year tens of thousands of renters will face higher rents. Some will pay full market rent at the start of their tenancy and all will face big hikes at the end of their tenancies. Tenants entering new build properties will be hit with market-level rents on day one and, with rent increases tied to inflation thereafter, they are set to see their rents rise sharply. Fianna Fáil rolls the dice on housing once again.

The Government does all of this with no guarantee that it will lead to any significant increase in supply. The Housing Agency is very clear on that score. Even in the most optimistic of scenarios, the Government's plan will see landlords of high-end apartments in exclusive pockets of Dublin charging eye-watering rents but in the rest of Dublin and in every other county there will be no extra supply but there will be much higher rents. In fact, there is a very real danger the Government's plan will actually tighten supply as landlords will now delay putting properties back on the market in order to charge a higher rent from next March. The Government says it will extend the rent protection to the 20% of renters it has left behind over a number of years. These are renters in rural areas, who have been hit by double digit rent increases already. If the Government does not act to extend that protection immediately, these renters will be put at immediate risk of big rent hikes as landlords move to get ahead of the Government's changes.

Then we come to the confusion the Taoiseach sowed in this Chamber yesterday. It was clear from the statement issued by the Minister, Deputy Browne, at lunchtime that the Government's plan is to allow all landlords to apply full market rent at the end of six-year tenancies. This clearly meant people staying in an existing property and signing a new tenancy agreement, along with people moving into a property for the first time. Then the Taoiseach was caught out, so throughout the afternoon he scrambled around, denying this was the case and then, sometime in the evening, somebody slipped off and, bizarrely, changed the press release on the Department website to have a new wording - a wording that changes nothing.

This is not about protecting renters at all. This is about making renters carry the can for the Government's failure in housing. The Government will allow record rents to be hiked up in the pitiful hope that big investors will save the day. It is the same casino behaviour that created this mess in the first place. Tá plean an Rialtais maidir le cíos imithe in abar idir neamhréiteach agus neamhinniúlacht. Is é an t-aon rud atá cinnte ná go rachaidh cíos in airde gan aon chinnteacht go dtiocfaidh feabhas ar an soláthar.

Why is the Government delaying extending the rental protection until March? Why is it allowing landlords to set the market rate rents themselves? What analysis has the Government done? Can the Taoiseach tell us how many renters will be hit by massive rent increases from 1 March under the Government's plan?

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