Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the Bill. The Minister will know I am not a man who is interested in theatrics or Government back-pats, but a Deputy elected by the people of west Cork to speak truthfully and plainly about the reality we face in the absolute failure this emergency RPZ Bill represents. This legislation is not a solution. It is a symptom of a Government chasing headlines and running away from problems of its own creation while abandoning the very families it claims to serve. It is not Independent Ireland's vision for a better, fairer or freer housing system.

The Minister wants us to believe that this Bill is about stability but for whom? It is certainly not for young people trying to buy their first home, the small landlord trying to rent fairly or the nurse commuting 90 minutes because she cannot afford a flat near the hospital. This Bill is about one thing: the illusion of control. It is panic dressed up as a policy. Rent pressure zones were meant to be temporary. Like every half-baked policy this Government has brought forward, however, they have become a permanent fixture, stifling supply, squeezing out small landlords and doing precious little to meaningfully reduce rents. Now, with this emergency legislation, the Government wants to stretch that failed model across the country like a Band-Aid on a broken leg. This Bill discourages the very participation it needs to work. It tells landlords they are not partners in the housing solution; they are the problem. That is not just wrong; it is reckless. It is undermining supply and undermining communities.

In my constituency of Cork South-West, I speak weekly to builders and farmers’ sons and daughters who are trying to build on family land. Every one of them has hit a brick wall, be it with planning, bureaucracy, rising materials costs or rental laws written with Dublin 4 in mind, not Dunmanway or Bantry. What does this legislation offer them? It offers more red tape, more fear and more planning restrictions. The Bill expands RPZ restrictions without one meaningful commitment to increase housing supply in rural Ireland.

Independent Ireland has called loudly for streamlined rural planning for in-person preplanning meetings and for modular and prefabricated homes that can be built affordably and quickly. We propose doubling the rear extension allowance in order that elderly parents can downsize and stay close to their families. These are solutions that build communities whereas this legislation builds resentment. Let us talk about fairness. This Bill, in all its haste, refuses to recognise the lived experience of students, front-line workers or those in the rental trap through no fault of their own. It offers no flexibility and no understanding. We in Independent Ireland have been clear that in view of students’ specific housing needs, they need specific solutions. We need to expand campus building. Let us allow developers to use log cabins and prefab buildings to meet seasonal demand. This Government would rather throw a one-size-fits-none net across the country and call it reform.

While we are at it, let us talk about short-term letting. Instead of clear rules that distinguish between home shares and commercial operators, the Bill hits everyone with the same regulatory hammer. A family trying to rent a room in their home for a few weeks a year now faces bureaucracy that rivals the corporate sector, with forms, fines and enforcement, all while vacant State buildings rot in plain sight. Is that fairness? Is that common sense?

We need housing policies that incentivise development, not punish effort. Independent Ireland has proposed tax incentives to bring vacant properties back into use. We have urged the Government to reduce VAT on building materials, reform mortgage access and bring home our builders from abroad with tax reliefs and real opportunity. This Bill does none of that. Instead, it drives out small landlords, pushes out developers and paints anyone with property as an enemy of progress. That is not the issue. That is scapegoating. Where are the real reforms? The Minister has been in government for almost six months. In that time, all he has come up with is a Bill that looks like it was written on the back of a cigarette packet on Monday night or Tuesday morning. There is a hollow brass-plate name change to An Bord Pleanála, a new chairman with little or no obvious experience in the construction or planning sectors and a press release promising that an “Enhanced LDA will beef up delivery of homes across the country”. There are six key promises that appear to me to be nothing more than waffle.

While talking about waffle, I have to mention one person who spoke a lot of waffle the last two times he spoke in the Dáil, criticising Independent Ireland's policies, and that is Deputy Mattie McGrath. The same TD voted against Independent Ireland's motion on housing to hold the Government accountable. The same TD voted for the Taoiseach. The same TD voted against our proposals on NGOs. He voted with the Government to allow Deputy Michael Lowry additional speaking time. He also voted with the Government on the national framework. A man who hails himself as the so-called independent Opposition is almost more Fianna Fáil now than he ever was in his life.

He was criticising Independent Ireland's housing policies. We can stand over them. All he ever has is a blank piece of paper. We have policies and we can stand before the people with them.

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