Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

I will first say to the Deputy that since the Government came in a number of months ago in January, we have approved an extra €700 million in respect of projects and programmes for social and affordable housing. We passed the national planning framework, which will enable local authorities to zone far more land for house construction. We brought forward proposals on legislation to extend and renew planning permissions in order to give continuity and ensure that those planning permissions can be realised. We brought in the RPZ reforms that were announced last week, which the Deputy is now attacking. In the same breath and the same comment, the Deputy talks about a radical reset recommended by the Housing Commission. This was recommended by the Housing Commission - a reform of the RPZs. Which is it? What aspects of the Housing Commission is the Deputy saying we should and should not implement? The Housing Agency was asked to do a review of RPZs following on from the Housing Commission. It did its review. We have adopted one of the proposed areas - as in reforming the RPZs, not getting rid of them as the Deputy said I would. We are not doing anything like that; we are strengthening protections for renters.

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