James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

We know there is a housing crisis and the only way to address that is by increasing supply. We have increased it from 20,000 to 30,000 homes. We need a step change to get to 50,000 homes and more so that people have the homes they want to live in where they want to live in their communities.

Rent pressure zones were due to end this year, as Deputies well know. If the Government and I did not take action everything would go back to market rates and we were not prepared to allow that to happen. The Government’s proposals are balanced, considered and measured and they ensure a continuation of tenants’ protections. They also make necessary adjustments to help promote investment in the sector.

We have to increase supply. For anyone who is currently renting, there is no change. It is important to state that those in a tenancy will face increases of 2% or the rate of inflation, whichever is the lower. That was a decision of the Cabinet last week. It was in a memorandum. All of the deliberate confusion by the opposite side is not good. It is a fact. It is a decision. People can have their opinion, but facts are facts. People cannot make them up, which is what those in opposition are trying to do.

A memorandum that we would move to one national rent control went to Government last week. That was a Cabinet decision taken last Tuesday. That we would do it as a matter of priority and with urgency, separate from the main legislation, was also agreed at Cabinet last week. Not only that, but the heads of the Bill went to Cabinet last Tuesday. These are all facts. What the Opposition is trying to do, in a really dishonest way, is try to deliberately create confusion and whip up false anger among people for purely political ends. It is putting politics before people. It is a dishonest approach.

We are doubling down on protections for renters. The tenancies of indefinite duration continue, and we are adding the additional protections of security of tenure. Threshold welcomed this. The Simon Community gave it a cautious welcome. Mick Byrne commented. People Deputy Ó Broin regularly likes to cite in this Chamber are being conveniently ignored on this occasion. Yesterday and today, we heard a lot of personalisation of politics, criticisms and clichés, but no solutions.

Sinn Féin's manifesto from last year, a policy of a home you will never own, has been quietly shelved. It is currently trying to work out new proposals. We no longer hear about its manifesto. The only thing Sinn Féin has mentioned here is freezing the current housing situation. How does that give us more homes? That does not solve anything, as Deputy Ó Broin knows full well.

We have to get supply going. There are no solutions coming. We need private investment to do that. The Government is delivering over 50% of all of the homes in the State. We will deliver more social and affordable homes, but if we are going to reach a target of 50,000 homes and more, we need private investment. Nobody in opposition has said where we are going to get this funding from, which is deeply frustrating.

Very few Members know procedures as well as Deputy Ó Broin. He knows that a Bill cannot go on the Order Paper until it is approved by Cabinet. The Bill to which the Deputy referred could not go on the Order Paper. The heads of the Bill went to Cabinet last Tuesday and the policy was approved. Yet, Deputies from Sinn Féin, he Labour Party and the Social Democrats, all of whom know the procedure, deliberately stated that because the Bill is not on the Order Paper, it would not happen and there would be some sort of sudden and fast change. That is the kind of politics we see from the far right being introduced here.

Ordinary people cannot be expected to understand the procedures in a Chamber like this. Procedures are not political. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Independents, the Labour Party and the Social Democrats do not own the procedures; the House does. Yet, the Opposition deliberately misrepresented the procedures to whip up a false narrative. Can the Opposition not see the danger in using the Chamber to whip up that kind of false anger? It is deeply dishonest. It is a Faustian pact. Labour did that to get into Government before, and it is going down the same path again. When people make a Faustian pact to whip up anger and try to get into Government, they should bear in mind that the Opposition in the previous Dáil at least tried to be constructive. This is pure populism. If the Opposition gets into Government on the back of whipping up that kind of anger, it should note what happened to the Labour Party the last time. That is what happens. When people mislead people, they burn.

The protections we are introducing are important. As I said, Threshold, the Simon Community, Mick Byrne and others have welcomed these provisions. Those protections are fundamentally changing our landlord and tenancy law for the better in order to protect tenants across this country. The measures in the Bill today, which the Opposition will vote for despite all of the giving out, will extend rent pressure zones nationally. The first thing the Opposition will do is vote for our measures, which is instructive in terms of trying to have it both ways.

As I said, we are doubling down on rent protections. We had more misinformation today, that somehow in the Bill there is some incentive for landlords to put people out. There is no incentive to put people out because if a landlord serves a notice to quit, they cannot reset the rent. It is as simple as that. Rent can only be reset if the tenant voluntarily leaves. That is an essential protection. There is no incentive for landlords to put people out. This is only one of a series of measures.

We made the decision to extend planning permissions to preserve the pipeline. Another decision protects renters, but also makes a small adjustment to try to remove a blockage from investors who will not invest with a 2% rent cap in new buildings because they can make a loss and investors simply will not do that. We will make other decisions in the coming weeks to make sure we can address the viability issue because we were never going to make renters address that.

People in all counties will now be in rent protection zones. These proposals are fair and balanced. There are safeguards. The measures are sustainable. We are moving from a rolling rent pressure zone with a level of uncertainty where nobody really knew where they were going to be to permanent national rent control. That is a phenomenal change.

We are also providing security of tenure. We talked about this for decades when I studied and practised law. Other Deputies know the fundamental change being introduced. Rather than having a rational discussion and engaging, the Opposition simply wants to whip up anger with misrepresentations and misleading comments in the hope it can create confusion.

I am a TD and I speak with people in my constituency every day. The confusion to which other Deputies referred is not there. People know the crisis we are in and want us to do things, including make bold decisions, and that is what we are doing. Making personal attacks, stating clichés and offering no solutions are not what people want. That approach is clearly not working.

Regarding the national planning framework, in the next couple of weeks, I will write to every local authority to request that it massively increase the amount of land to be zoned. We are addressing planning exemptions. We will take a whole raft of work off our planners. We have a shortage of planners and it will take time to increase their number because it takes time to train them. Becoming a planner takes a long time.

We will give people control of their own properties in respect of health and education services, transport and other areas. We will address the small adjustments that have to go to planning. People sometimes like to take enforcement proceedings away from the planners, but we will allow people to work quickly in those areas. We can get planners to focus on the big decisions they need to make in terms of delivering homes.

We are reforming the Land Development Agency. One of the key aspects will be having a master plan for key areas. The housing activation office will deal with the other end of the LDA and will work on the ground to help to unlock sites for which it will have master plans. It will also review the secure tenancy affordable rental, STAR, programme.

We have proposals and plans. The Opposition does not have to like them, but it needs to start coming forward with its own solutions and not simply insult everybody and insult the intelligence of the general public by deliberately confusing them. The deliberate misrepresentation of the rules of this House is a dangerous precedent to set.

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