Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

Deputy Gould should hang on a second and give me a chance. It now stands at 62% of properties, which affects more than six out of ten people. It also finds the benefit of the rent pressure zones because it finds that, where rents have increased, it is disproportionately in areas not covered by rent pressure zones.

Deputy Doherty likes to talk a lot about what has happened since the election. What has happened since the election is that this Government that was re-elected and reformed took a decision to extend nationwide the rent property zones, including, in the Deputy's own county, Carndonagh, Buncrana, Lifford, Letterkenny, Milford, Glenties and Donegal town, areas that were not covered by rent pressure zones until we brought in those measures in recent times. I have no doubt that is also going to provide much assistance and protection.

I accept we are seeing a churn in terms of landlords coming into the market and landlords leaving the market, but we are actually also seeing more tenancies than before. Nationally, approved housing bodies have seen their registered tendencies grow year on year and quarter on quarter. Private tenancies have also grown annually to 240,751. In Dublin, an area where there is often particularly acute housing pressure, registered private tenancies rose by 4.3% annually to 108,174.

Deputy Doherty says his position on rent and rental protections is clear. I am not sure it is because I genuinely do not know today whether or not Sinn Féin supports rent pressure zones. Deputy Ó Broin did not support them. He said Sinn Féin would get rid of them and replace them with a reference system that the Housing Agency and the ESRI, both independent of Government, said would not work. They said it would be extremely complicated and it would not work. I believe it would have actually pushed up people's rent. Yet, I heard Deputy Doherty's leader say on national radio that scrapping RPZs would remove the only modest protection. I am not sure if that is discontent within the Sinn Féin party. Is Eoin telling the truth or is Mary Lou telling the truth? Which is the policy of Sinn Féin when it comes to renters?

Deputy Doherty mentioned the rent tax credit. When this Government was returned to office, the rent tax credit was due to expire. We took a decision not just to increase it for a year but to increase it and keep it there for the next three years. It was going to go to zero euro and zero cent until we took the decision to put hundreds of millions of euro of taxpayers' money into the rent tax credit. Sinn Féin's position when it comes to rent pressure zones is truly Jekyll and Hyde stuff. We are bringing in a series of rental protections. I want people listening into this debate to know that on 10 June, we brought in a series of new rights and protections for both new and existing tenants-----

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