Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

With regard to the overall changes proposed by the Minister recently, I compliment him on the balance he has struck. The Opposition will always try to pit landlords against tenants, and have the narrative around tenants versus landlords. We have to focus on both groups and that is the reality. This is about increasing housing supply and we have to deal with the needs of tenants and landlords. The Minister has struck this balance and counteracted the narrative as best he could. This is an extremely complex area. Reforming rental protections and aspects of the rental market is extremely complicated and complex. What has come forward has been very well thought through and very substantive. I compliment the Minister and his team on it.

The overall changes proposed are about trying to activate supply and increase our housing output numbers. This is ultimately the solution to high rents and high house prices. We have to meet supply and demand. Unfortunately, we are long way off this at present despite the progress that has been made. Significant progress has been made in the housing area. If we go back five years we were developing 20,000 houses in this country. We are now developing more than 30,000. Ten years ago we were developing 12,000 houses. Significant progress is being made and this has to be acknowledged. If we were to listen to some in the Opposition we would think the Government is doing nothing about this.

We are pumping almost €7 billion of public funds into housing, which puts us as the top or second country in Europe in terms of our spend on housing. This is the way it should be. We are in a housing emergency. Of course, this is what we should be doing and possibly even increasing it further. The reality is that there has to be private equity also. I sat at a meeting of the housing committee yesterday and listened to the Housing Agency outline clearly to us how private equity has fallen off in terms of investment in housing. This is a significant concern and it is something we have to address. The changes the Minister has brought forward on the rental market will help in this respect. This is only one of the levers, as has been outlined by other speakers. A series of measures has been proposed by the Minister in recent times, with more to come, which will help with housing supply and activating and stimulating growth.

The Bill is short and it is very welcome. I appreciate the Opposition facilitating the Bill. At the housing committee yesterday it agreed to relax pre-legislative scrutiny. This is very important because it is about protecting renters in some parts of the country, whereby up to 17% of renters nationwide are not protected by the rent pressure zones. It is about bringing in this measure as a matter of urgency so that landlords do not increase rents prior to the bigger changes coming into place on 1 March. I very much welcome this and section 3 of the Bill provides for it. Section 4 of the Bill provides for the continuation of existing rent pressure zones until the end of February 2026 so the protections are in place for renters. This is an important measure. The Bill is very straightforward and it should be adopted as a matter of urgency. I hope we can conclude the business quite quickly. I compliment the Minister on the work he has done in this respect. It is striking the right balance. It is not an easy task but he has struck the right chord.

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