Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)

The Minister should go and talk to the journalists who raised these questions with his officials at the technical briefing. This was going to be in the legislation later this year.

While the RPZs should have always applied to all renters back in 2016, no one should be facing rent increases right now. We need rent increases banned for an emergency period of three years for those renters paying the highest rents in the history of the State. The amendments I will table later, which we will push to a vote, would do exactly that. They would protect renters who are already paying rip-off rents from any form of rent increase at all. That is what a party which wants to protect renters should be doing, along with putting in place a credible plan to increase investment in the delivery of social, affordable and private for-purchase homes.

The Minister also needs to clarify the impact of this legislation on people currently engaging in short-term letting, in many cases in rural countryside areas. This practice is valuable to the tourism economy. They understood that this matter was going to be dealt with by the process of the register legislation and the accompanying planning regulations from the Minister, Deputy Burke. The day after this Bill comes into effect, however, the short-term letting regulations introduced by the former Minister, Eoghan Murphy, will apply across the board. The Minister owes those people an explanation as to the implications of this and what his instructions to local authorities will be.

To be clear, Sinn Féin is not opposing this Bill. What is in front of us will not protect renters because in a short matter of months, the Minister will bring forward legislation that will rip the heart out of the rent pressure zones. Over a period of time, many of the people the Government is promising protection today will eventually have their rents set to full market rent. All of the affordability gains of the near decade of rent pressure zones will be wiped away. That is what the Government is doing. It is part of a much bigger package, one that is an assault on renters at a time when the Government is also considering reducing design standards. Not only will renters be paying more rent, they will be living in smaller, darker and less adequate apartments in the future. The big consequence of Fianna Fáil's rent-hike Bill is that renters will be the losers once again. This Bill means higher rents with no guarantee of increased supply.

What is clear today, after two weeks of chaos and confusion, is that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's housing policy has been exposed for the disaster that it is. The Minister's handling of this has been greatly damaged. That is why, in the context of the protest yesterday, the protest in Cork on Saturday and in the weeks ahead, thousands of people will march in opposition to what the Government is doing to renters. It is ripping them off and forcing them to pay higher rents. We will not stand for it.

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