John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the opportunity to speak on the challenges we face to secure a housing system that meets the needs of our society. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, and I will set out how we are building on the progress made in recent years under the Housing for All plan to address the serious housing challenges touching every family in this country, and the Minister, Deputy Browne, will give concluding comments. He is doing media engagements at the moment.

Building new homes is a top priority for this Government. We have committed to delivering 300,000 new homes between 2025 and 2030, targeting an average of 50,000 homes annually in this period. These new targets are ambitious but provide a pathway to deliver the scale of housing needed for our people. As a reference, these new targets are more than double the output of the past five years. No doubt there are challenges and barriers to addressing these numbers, but I reiterate our strong commitment and determination to address these. As Minister of State with responsibility for planning and local government, I know more than anyone that an effective planning system remains a critical piece of the solution to the housing challenges we face. A number of key achievements have been delivered in that regard in recent weeks and months, which I am happy to set out for the House. The revised national planning framework was approved by the Government in April and passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas in May. It provides the basis for the review and updating of the regional, economic and spatial strategies and local authority development plans to reflect matters such as updated housing figures, projected jobs growth and renewable energy capacity allocations, including through the zoning of land for residential, employment and a range of other purposes.

Given the urgent need to ensure the updated housing requirements can be incorporated into the planning system as quickly as possible to address housing need and demand, local authorities will be required to vary current development plans. This is a key priority for the Government. We want to see what has been agreed under the NPF translated to a local basis urgently. The Minister, Deputy Browne, has already written to local authorities advising them to commence the process of reviewing and updating their development plans. New housing growth requirement figures will be issued shortly, on completion of the necessary screening.

The Planning and Development Act 2024 represents a significant reform of the planning system and is being commenced on a phased basis to the end of the year. It will bring greater clarity and certainty for those navigating the planning system. For example, new statutory timelines for decision-making and a streamlined judicial review process will help to reduce delays that may be constraining housing supply and will ensure investment decisions can be made knowing when a decision on a planning application may be forthcoming.

The Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2025 was approved by Cabinet for priority drafting on 27 May. It is intended to be enacted before the summer recess. The Bill will ensure sufficient time is given to activate planning permissions for much-needed housing across the country. It will enable an extension of the duration of permissions for housing developments nearing the end of their duration period but which have not yet commenced. The Bill will also allow the duration of a judicial review period to not be counted as part of the effective life of the planning permission, on a retrospective basis. This is important because at the moment the clock does not stop on the duration of a planning permission when the permission is subject to a judicial review. Both measures are pragmatic and grounded in common sense. They are an integral part of ensuring sufficient housing units through the planning permission that can be activated to deliver much-needed homes for individuals and families.

Other activation measures are being progressed so no measure should be viewed in isolation. As part of the implementation of the Planning and Development Act 2024, urban development zones are another new element of planning legislation that will enable further housing development. They constitute a progressive measure which will allow for a plan-led process that includes a key decision-making role for planning authorities. They also provide upfront certainty for communities and the development sector, building on the best elements of the former strategic development zones. The Minister, Deputy Browne, has signed an order that will enable local authorities to identify suitable sites for UDZs and will enable the Land Development Agency and regional assemblies to bring appropriate sites to the attention of local authorities and the Minister. It is imperative this work begin as soon as possible and I envisage it being completed in tandem with the variation process.

With regard to exempted development regulations, we are committed to expanding and improving existing planning exemptions for housing, including subdivision of dwelling and detached modular units to the rear of a dwelling.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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On a point of order, there is not a quorum here. I need to leave. I have been here for a few hours. I am calling a quorum.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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We had a quorum when we started.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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Well, I am leaving now. The Government could not even get a quorum for housing statements.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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A quorum was called. There was a quorum when it was called. Therefore, proceed.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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It is quite astonishing there is nobody here from the Opposition during statements on housing, despite the fact it is the most important issue facing this country.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I am behind you, Minister of State.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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That is very good. Nice of you to join us.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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We are with the Housing Commission in committee so we are stretched over two places.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Perfect. The Department is undertaking a review of the exempted development provisions, which will provide further options for provision of housing. A public consultation process will commence this month and updated regulations will come into force later this year.

The commencement of Part 17 of the Planning and Development Act to establish An Coimisiún Pleanála to replace An Bord Pleanála is imminent. It will build on the work under way to reduce cases on hand, which have fallen from 3,616 in May 2023 to 1,364 in April this year, and introduce the mandatory decision-making timelines I referenced a few moments ago. All these measures are about getting things moving and ensuring we do not lose out on important developments and that the many planning permissions granted are realised and increase housing supply.

Infrastructure is another crucial aspect of enabling housing supply. The provision of critical infrastructure is at the centre of Government's priorities. We are committed to delivering on the key objectives for infrastructure to support delivery of 300,000 houses by the end of 2030 and to boost the country's competitiveness. To this end, we are establishing a housing activation office in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to identity and address barriers to the delivery of public infrastructure projects needed for housing developments through the alignment of funding and co-operation of infrastructure providers.

The Government has also established an infrastructure division within the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation to lead the process of infrastructure reform. The Government is investing record levels of capital in critical infrastructure, including in water and energy, and will continue to do so under the national development plan for the period 2025 to 2035, which is under review and will be published shortly.

I am keen to listen to contributions this evening and to engage in productive dialogue. I hope contributions - when Opposition Members decide to enter the Chamber - are given in the spirit of increasing housing supply, rather than just for the sake of opposition, which has been the case in many of the debates heretofore on housing.

Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)
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I echo the Minister of State's sentiments. The Opposition has been calling for a debate on housing for a while and has accused the Government of avoiding and not having the debate. When we eventually have it, one Opposition Member graces the benches. Well done, Deputy Ó Broin. There is no one here from the Social Democrats or the Labour Party. That is disappointing.

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the opportunity to address the House on housing matters. As highlighted by the Minister of State, the Government's clear focus is on building new homes, including social and affordable housing, particularly through new build projects delivered by local authorities, approved housing bodies and the Land Development Agency. Our goal remains a housing system that truly serves the needs of our people.

It is important to reflect on the progress we have made in recent years under Housing for All. It is easy to forget that in 2012 and 2013 we delivered less than 5,000 new homes each year. By 2020 and 2021, this had increased to 20,500 new-build homes added to the national housing stock per year. In 2022 and 2023, an undeniably significant step change in delivery was achieved, with almost 30,000 and over 32,500 houses delivered respectively, exceeding the Housing for All targets. More than 92,000 new homes were built from 2022 to 2024, an annual average of almost 31,000.

Despite the upward trajectory of supply through this period, there have been some recent disappointments, most notably the dip in the number of new homes built last year. This, in particular, brings into stark focus the enormous task of securing enough housing to meet our needs.

Over 32,500 social homes were added to the social housing stock between 2022 and 2024 under Housing for All. There is also a strong pipeline with over 24,000 social homes at all stages of design and build, which will be delivered over the coming years.

Housing for All also provided for the introduction of a number of new affordable housing supports, which have allowed the delivery of significant numbers of affordable homes through both new builds and homes brought back into use. These supports, including cost rental, are starting to deliver at scale and this momentum will continue as the pipeline is developed. Nearly 13,000 affordable housing supports were delivered in 2024 by approved housing bodies, local authorities and the Land Development Agency, alongside schemes such as the first home scheme and the vacant property refurbishment grant. Over 7,100 affordable solutions were delivered in 2024. This is the highest yearly delivery to date, exceeding the year's target of 6,400.

On 13 May, the Government approved an additional €30 million in State commitment to the first home scheme, bringing the total State commitment for the scheme to €370 million. Under the scheme, more than 6,700 buyers have been approved to date and more than 3,300 homes were bought using the scheme to the end of quarter 1 of 2025.

The Government is extremely focused on tackling vacancy and dereliction. We have provided a €150 million fund to end long-term vacancy and dereliction in towns and cities under the urban regeneration development fund. Up to the end of quarter 1 of 2025, over 8,652 approvals had issued already and €112 million has been paid out to refurbish almost 2,100 homes. We also extended the local authority home loan to help to finance the purchase and renovation of derelict and non-habitable properties. This Government will continue to roll out the largest social and affordable housing programme in the history of the State. This is demonstrated by the record level of investment being provided for the delivery of housing in 2025, with overall capital funding of almost €6.8 billion now available. The capital provision for 2025 is supplemented by a further €1.65 billion in current funding to address housing need.

Despite this undoubted progress, we must acknowledge that housing remains an enormous challenge. The number of new homes coming on stream each year is far short of where it needs to be. Over the past four years, we have learned there is no silver bullet solution to the challenges we face. The State has invested unprecedented levels of public money in the delivery of housing in recent years and we must continue to do so. We must consider every lever at our disposal to increase supply. We remain steadfast in our commitment to meet the challenges head-on and ensure that all those aspiring to independence in the housing market can realise their aspiration.

In the programme for Government, the Government has committed to delivering 300,000 new homes between 2025 and 2030, targeting at least 60,000 homes annually by the end of the period. The new targets are ambitious but provide a credible pathway to delivering the scale of housing needed. The targets are not a ceiling. We plan to revisit them in 2027 and if, reflecting demand and growing industry capacity, we need different targets for 2028 and subsequent years, we will revise them. Our immediate focus must be on achieving these targets.

Key to achieving these targets will be the delivery of new apartment developments in our cities and urban cores. Much of the investment needed for such developments must come from the private sector, financed through appropriate sources of private capital, much of which will come from international sources. This capital is critical to apartment delivery, particularly for the private rental sector. Many of the apartments delivered last year were State led, and while this secured much-needed social, cost-rental and affordable housing, it is not a sustainable long-term solution. A stable and certain policy environment will help to attract the private investment needed and the changes to rent pressure zones, RPZs, approved today by the Government will be critical in this regard. The Minister, Deputy Browne, will address this issue in further detail later. The approach agreed seeks to strike the right balance between protecting affordability for renters on the one hand, while encouraging new investment in the residential construction sector on the other. We can both protect renters and attract sustainable long-term investment to finance new homes for rent.

The Government has committed to introducing a new all-of-government housing plan to follow Housing for All, underpinned by a multiannual funding commitment. The new national housing plan, which will be published in the coming months, will focus on policies and structures that set us on a sustainable and resilient footing as we seek to secure a long-term pipeline of delivery and funding to 2030 and beyond.

I will return briefly to today's announcement in respect of RPZs. There is an effort and intention to try to increase the amount of investment and deliver units at scale. That will, as I have said, require private investment, private finance and international finance. That is one of the intentions of these proposals. The other intention is to provide security for renters. The extension of the RPZ nationally is a move that I am fully supportive of and squarely behind. To bring it to a local level, half of my constituency is within an RPZ and half is not. Half of my constituency is afforded the protection of an RPZ and the 2% cap on rent increases whereas my hometown of Clonakilty and the town of Skibbereen do not have that protection. The move made today provides that security for those tenants.

I welcome the comments and contributions of other Members and will listen to the debate.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I declare an interest in this debate. For the past 40 years, I have been strongly involved in the provision of housing. I will continue to be involved for the rest of my time in an accelerated and growing way, year on year, despite all the difficulties in that sector.

There are issues surrounding this whole debate and why it is happening. An awful lot of people in opposition wanted a debate on housing. It is ironic that there is, thankfully, one representative of the Opposition-----

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Hear, hear.

Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Hear, hear.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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-----who is willing to come into the Chamber. Other people grandstand, shout and roar about housing. I am glad and proud that this Government is strongly focused. The provision of more housing is one of the main objectives of this Government. We must ensure protection for people who are looking for their own houses or to rent local authority houses or houses provided by approved housing agencies. We have, however, many difficulties to overcome.

I wish to highlight an initiative about which the Opposition has been silent. I thank the Minister for his work and compliment him strongly in this regard. The new planning exemptions will apply to the adjustment of existing houses, the subdividing of houses and the provision of accommodation overhead in shops and pubs. We are trying to tackle the scourge of dereliction. It is ironic to think that at a time when we want more housing, we have such a number of vacant properties.

We must also tackle the long waits in turning around local authority housing and ensure that when a house becomes vacant, it will be treated the same as a house in the private sector, turned around and rented out again. We do not have that at present. The Government and local authorities must work hand in hand to ensure we turn properties around quickly.

The exemptions in respect of modular homes will also help our planning authorities, which often struggle with an awful lot of red tape and officialdom. That will, thankfully, be sorted out by these new exemptions, which will clear their decks to deal with what they should be dealing with, which is applications from people who are seeking to build, particularly on their own family farms. These are people who want to provide a house for themselves and hope to secure planning permission to do so.

Before I move away from local authorities, I will raise an issue those in the Opposition know an awful lot about, that is, serial objectors. Unusually for an institution such as Dáil Éireann, and this is something that many members of the public do not realise, in parties such as Sinn Féin and others, there are serial objectors. People are on the record as having objected to thousands and thousands of homes. The majority of normal people go through their lives and do not object to one house. They do not object to anything and are able to carry out their lives that way.

However, some people use their political platform to stop development. How can people stand up in Dáil Éireann and say they want housing to be provided while at the same time, when somebody comes along and puts in a planning application in their area, they object to it and think that is all right? They object for various reasons but, to be honest, those reasons are best known to themselves. I cannot understand why anybody would use his or her position as an elected representative to object to somebody else having a home, be that a flat, an apartment or a house, just because that representative does not want it and somebody else has asked him or her to object to it. That is crazy.

What should happen, when it comes to objections, is the €20 fee that is there at present for putting in an objection, and the €200 fee to take somebody to the board, should be increased by many multiples of euro. Why? If people have a genuine complaint, they will not mind paying money to put in that observation or objection, but if they are doing so for very frivolous reasons and have to stick their hand in their pocket to stop somebody else from having a home, and have to pay a higher price for it, it might stop them doing that type of activity.

I note the absence of Labour Party Members. They were the people who were going to build a million houses. They are interested in building a million houses out of thin air and also seeking another new bike shed. That was what they wanted to build. They wanted to take the bike shed from the back of Leinster House and put another out the front. That has to be put on record. It is there on the public record that the leader of the Labour Party wrote a letter to the Ceann Comhairle asking for a bike shelter to be provided on the Kildare Street side of Dáil Éireann.

With regard to our banks, AIB and BOI, I deal every day with people who want to borrow money from the bank. They are workers who want to borrow money to get a mortgage but they cannot because of those two banks, which were served very well by the taxpayers of this State in keeping their doors open. I appreciate the work our banks do, but why in the name of God are they closed to giving people loans and mortgages? It is impossible for young people to get a loan from the banks at present.

I welcome the fact we have a grant scheme for vacant and derelict houses but, unfortunately, there are an awful lot of problems administering that. People are finding it very cumbersome and awkward to get through that process. Of course, local authorities charged with administering the scheme have to be prudent and careful, but there is such a thing as prudence and such a thing as making something virtually impossible for a person to qualify for. If a person owns a derelict or vacant house and wants to do it up, and this Government wants to give assistance in providing a home for that person or somebody else, surely we can look at the difficulties we are having in administering the scheme and streamline those to ensure it will become a more user-friendly way of getting the financial assistance people are entitled to.

On private investment, this Government acknowledges, which the Opposition does not, that we need private involvement in the housing market. Again, there are parties on the other side of the House that really think we will be able to pull billions and billions - up to €20 billion a year - out of thin air and put it into housing. We will not be able to afford to solve the problem on our own. We need private investment. Maybe people in the Opposition do not like that but if we want to protect people who need a home for themselves, and we want to do good by those people, the only way we will do so is by providing more and more opportunities for homes for them to live in. At present, we are not doing that. One of the reasons we are not doing it is that the confidence has gone out of private investment because people are looking at what is being said in places such as Dáil Éireann. People are forgetting the fact that for those who provide accommodation, the Government takes the biggest stake out of that in taxation on rents. Everybody is talking about high rents but nobody is talking about the fact that, in many cases, 56% of that is tax. It is tax. That is where the money is going. It is not going into anybody's pocket. It is going in tax. These people are collecting money, but they are paying up to 56% in tax.

We need to provide more housing. We have a big job of work to do but this Government has the practical solutions. It has the drive and determination to take the necessary measures. I support the Minister for housing in what he is endeavouring to do. I really do. We need somebody who will catch this problem, who will catch the bull by the horns and really tackle it, who will be imaginative and who will try to instil confidence back into the housing market. The actual cost of providing housing has gone through the roof, as has the cost of building. When people are doing their sums, it quite simply does not make sense any more for people in the private sector to provide accommodation. That is one of the biggest problems we have. When they see some of the statements that are coming from people in opposition, that certainly will not give them the confidence to get involved in the housing market.

One of the biggest losses we have is the fact that small builders are a rare breed at present because they have gone out of business. Not only do we need big developers to provide big housing schemes, we also need, and this was a very important person, the person in a local parish, community or town who built one, two, three, or maybe five or ten, houses a year, but were doing so year on year. We need expertise and good advice in housing. There are what might be called big developers in this country who have been at it for decades. They are people who are reputable and have been steeped in the provision of housing for decades. We have to look to those people for advice and guidance when it comes to exactly what we will do in future to tackle this ever-increasing problem. We have a growing population and so many young and beautiful people growing up here. We want to be able to retain them. We want to be able to keep them in this country. One of the most important things they will need for themselves and their families in the future is a home they can call their own. We have a big job of work to do. I hope the measures that are being taken will be helpful.

The fact is that An Bord Pleanála has a free hand at present as it has no statutory times or dates. I welcome the fact that will change. I welcome that it will have to ensure it will deal with appeals in a timely and swift fashion.

I do not want to eat into anybody else's time. We can listen to the shouting and roaring but what we need is a Government of action. I believe the measures taken over the past couple of weeks are the first steps in the right direction, but we need to grow confidence in the housing sector to ensure that more and more houses can be built over the coming months and years.

Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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Housing is the number one priority for this Government. It is the issue I hear most about when I meet people across Meath West. This concern is not limited to one age group. Our twenty-somethings are struggling to gain independence. They are stuck in expensive rental markets with little hope of home ownership. Our thirty-somethings who are ready to settle down and start families are squeezed by high prices and limited supply. Our fifty-somethings are often parents watching their adult children remain at home far longer than they ever expected, not out of choice but by necessity. This is not a uniquely Irish challenge. Across the world, advanced economies are grappling with housing crises. In Canada, cities such as Toronto and Vancouver are facing skyrocketing prices, despite significant state intervention. In Germany, rent caps introduced in Berlin were struck down by courts, proving that simplistic solutions often backfire.

Housing is a deeply complex global issue rooted in supply shortages, regulatory delays and demographic shifts, yet here in Ireland real progress is being made. Fianna Fáil in government is delivering practical results. I recently met a man in Kildalkey in my constituency of Meath West who restored a vacant property into a beautiful family home, which was made possible by the vacant property refurbishment grant. That is policy working. I know countless couples in Trim, Enfield and right across Meath West who could not have secured their first home without the help-to-buy scheme and the first home scheme. These programmes are working. We are expanding them to include second-hand homes and adjusting value bands to match market realities, as needed.

We must reject the notion that home ownership is a stroke of luck. It should be an achievable standard, whether through owning or secure renting. While progress may not be as fast as any of us would like, we are moving in the right direction. Having worked in homebuilding for many years, I have seen first hand how the private sector is often unfairly scapegoated. Builders who contribute to communities are too easily vilified by the Opposition, which treats for-profit developers with suspicion and casts international investors as villains, but facts matter.

Mitchell McDermott has reported a 24% drop in apartment completions. The reason is a lack of international investment - investment driven away by the very rhetoric and policies championed by the Opposition.

Rent pressure zones, once hailed by the Opposition as the saviour of tenants, have in practice discouraged investment and stifled supply. Now, even modest proposals to tweak the RPZ model are shouted down before being seriously examined. We believe these changes can support small landlords, many of whom are simply families trying to rent out a single property. Allowing new tenancies at market value is not about profiteering; it is about keeping these landlords in the market to provide badly needed rental homes.

Yet again, the Opposition's view is reductive: landlord equals bad; investor equals worse. Sinn Féin has claimed there has been aggressive lobbying by institutional investors to roll back RPZ rules but it does not acknowledge that the consequences of driving out these investors are fewer homes, longer waiting lists and higher prices. It is not ideology that builds homes; it is capital, labour and land.

The Opposition's approach is full of contradictions. It opposes the current RPZs, rejects the revisions to same, attacks landlords and condemns international investment. It romanticises a world where local authorities can suddenly build housing at scale but refuses to say how or when or who will pay for it. It is politics over policy. We welcome scrutiny and debate but we need real, workable solutions, not slogans or vague wishlists.

The Minister, Deputy James Browne, alongside the Department of housing, is focused on cutting red tape and moving fast but smart. He has been criticised for taking his time to amend Housing for All but now we are seeing the benefit in detailed, deliverable measures: zoning more residential land before Christmas, extensions to planning permissions delayed by costs or judicial reviews, and exemptions for modular homes on family land to provide flexible housing for older parents and younger generations.

Many critics have laughed at the idea of building in back gardens but in Meath, families are embracing it. Downsizing parents are helping their children take the first step on the housing ladder and they are doing it with dignity, comfort and a sense of community. There is no silver bullet here. No single law will solve this crisis but a co-ordinated, sustained series of actions targeting social and affordable private housing will do so. Housing is not a partisan issue but it must be met with seriousness. This Government is doing the work. The Opposition must stop playing to the Gallery and start helping us build a future our people deserve.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Deputies Cleere and Byrne have two minutes each.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Two and a half minutes, is it?

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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It is 52 seconds divided by two. The Deputy can blame his Cabinet colleague from Kerry.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate the opportunity to speak here this afternoon on such an important topic. As Deputies know, the housing crisis is the single greatest issue facing this generation. I, like many of my colleagues, have spoken to so many people who still feel locked out of the property market. They are, perhaps, living at home, or are young people living abroad because they see a better quality of life and a better chance abroad. There are working families in a rental trap, unable to afford a mortgage. There are social housing waiting lists, and older people relying on a pension who are worried about their tenure in years to come. There are a lot of challenges out there with regard to the housing market.

I wish to quickly talk about three things. First, it is a specific measure and a commitment in the programme for Government to increase the level of capital to Irish Water over the next while. This is absolutely imperative. It has to be tied to new supply to enable housing and infrastructural development around the entire country, particularly in towns and villages across my constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny. We all know housing is the number one social issue and crisis facing this country but enabling infrastructure such as water would enable us to get more houses built more quickly and evenly throughout the country. We could get an awful lot more done.

In 2013, there were only 5,000 homes delivered. We are now in a situation - and it is a commitment in the programme for Government - to deliver 300,000 homes between 2025 and 2030, targeting at least 60,000 homes annually by the end of the period. We know from the ESRI and the Central Bank that it will cost €20 billion of investment, and the State - the Government, on behalf of the people - is contributing €7 billion towards that, the highest in any European country. The Government is putting more than any European country into trying to get the housing supply up.

We cannot do it alone. We need to support small businesses and the small builder out there, making sure they have access to finance and that the infrastructure is there when they build. I welcome the really positive news that the county development plans are being looked at again throughout the country. It is important that brownfield and greenfield sites are going to be looked at-----

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy's time has expired.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I think the Leas Cheann-Comhairle has the time wrong. I thought it was five-----

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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No, the Deputy's colleagues kept talking.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The clock is never wrong, nor is the Leas Cheann-Comhairle. We are very generous; go ahead.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I will be flexible as I go through it.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I think the Leas Cheann-Comhairle is wrong.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Who knows? We might learn something.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I am sorry about that, Deputy Cleere.

Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Leas Cheann-Comhairle for the indulgence, and I welcome the fact that there are members of Sinn Féin present although I notice that members of "performance before policy" are not present or, rather, the bourgeois wing of the party who, since the split happened, seem to be cosying up to Sinn Féin, according to other Members. It marks the fundamental difference between Government and Opposition in many ways.

My party has always supported the aspiration to own a home. It is a very legitimate aspiration and we need to involve the private sector to ensure that can happen. Most of the homebuilding being done at present is being done by the State. That is right. We need to provide social and affordable homes but we also need to make sure we support those who aspire to own their home.

In the brief time that is allowed to me, I wish to echo the importance, as emphasised by my colleague Deputy 'Chap' Cleere, of addressing the question of water and electricity connections. These are essential - specifically water, where we know the costs that are involved. The Minister of State will appreciate the importance of linking up small villages with water and wastewater schemes. I will instance two schemes which have been long outstanding in my constituency, namely, the Ferns-Camolin wastewater scheme in north Wexford and the Aughrim wastewater scheme in south Wicklow. They can be transformative if we can see them developed in those villages, allowing those villages to survive and be sustainable, and that can be replicated throughout the country.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I apologise for being slightly late for the debate. A very important session of the housing committee is taking place. The Housing Commission, after almost a year of delay and being ignored by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, is finally giving a very interesting session. I will refer to some of that in my testimony here.

With respect to the remarks of the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, it is slightly ironic that he criticised Opposition parties for not being here, told us he was very interested to hear what we had to say and then, the moment he finished his speech, he stood up and walked out, as other colleagues have done. I know Members are busy but if the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, does not want to be accused of being a hypocrite, he should be very careful of the criticism he levels at others when he is guilty of the very same thing.

I chuckle every time hear somebody in Fianna Fáil say it is the party of home ownership. Home ownership has collapsed under Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over the last decade and a half. In fact, it has never been so difficult for young people in their 20s, 30s and early 40s to buy homes. The rates of home ownership are getting lower by the year because of the Government's policies. With regard to the claim that the majority of homebuilding is being done by the State, as the Deputy for Wicklow-Wexford just said, that is not factually true. In fact, between 80% and 90% of all new homes are built by private developers. The State is buying a bunch of those but the number of new homes being built by local authorities and approved housing bodies is far too low.

Yes, it is true that €7 billion has been spent by the State on various housing matters but a lot of that is incredibly wasteful expenditure, including €1 billion on HAP, RAS and rent supplement - money straight into the pockets of landlords - and another €1 billion or so in subsidies that are not actually delivering any new homes. The actual amount of money spent on the delivery of new social, affordable rental and affordable purchase homes is only about €4 billion, which is why the Government is missing its targets every single year. It will miss them again this year and next year.

I will use the time I have to run through a number of issues of enormous concern, the first of which is the announcement by the Minister for housing today. It is essentially the death knell for rent pressure zones. I welcome the fact that the RPZs are to be extended to the 20% of renters who previously did not have them but the big issue is when. Landlords have now been told that they are coming and the more the delay, the greater risks there are to renters, including those in the constituency of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, that they will get even higher rent increases now as landlords anticipate the application of the RPZs. The urgency around that legislation is crucial and I would like to see it introduced immediately.

There is also no great value in extending RPZs to everybody else in the State if you are hollowing out those RPZs to such an extent that they do not do what they originally intended to do. Let us look at the facts. One of the big changes the Government has made is the application of allowing landlords with existing rental properties to reset the rent to market rent when a tenant moves out voluntarily or through a fault eviction, and a new tenant moves in.

Do we know how many of those tenancies are created every year? Last year there were approximately 50,000. That means the first consequence of the decision by the Government is that tens of thousands of tenancies that would not otherwise have had their rents reset at market rents will have them reset. That is a fact. Go and check the data from the Residential Tenancies Board.

We also have this very confusing issue of what happens at the end of a new tenancy. A new tenancy is not just when you move into a property; it is also when your existing six year tenancy expires and you sign a new one because the press release from the Minister stated that at the end of that six years rents can be increased to a market rent. We need urgent clarification on this because it seemed that both the Minister for housing and the Taoiseach were incredibly confused by that earlier. Whatever way we look at it, rents will begin to increase at a faster rate for greater numbers of tenants almost immediately after these rules come in. The irony is that I do not believe the Government will get the new rental stock it thinks it will get by linking new rents and new rental properties to the consumer price index and even if it does, it will be so expensive and in such limited parts of the country that it will simply make matters worse. What we have is a Government gaslighting renters when itsays it is protecting them but when the exact opposite is the case. The Government will make renters lives more difficult in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis and we will keep highlighting that to the Government as we proceed.

I will also talk about the enormous delays in the Department of housing. I am speaking to local authority director of housing managers and AHBs and they are telling us that across all of the delivery programmes for social and affordable housing - SHIP, CAF, CAS, CREL and the affordable housing fund - there is a growing backlog, the delays have gone from weeks to months and that is slowing down the pipeline of new homes. The Minister is denying it. The officials are denying it. They are refusing to provide Oireachtas Members information in responses to parliamentary questions. We had to secure the intervention of the Ceann Comhairle. If the Government was not able to meet its targets last year, the year before or the year before that, it will definitely not be able to meet them now which means fewer social homes and fewer affordable homes with all of the consequences of that.

We also had the decision of the Minister, Deputy Browne, last week - a shocking decision for many - to collapse bundle 3 of the public-private partnerships, PPPs, for 500 new-build social homes across five counties. I have never supported the PPP process; I always knew it was more expensive. However, by collapsing this process two years in, the Minister has created great uncertainty both for those 500 homes and the two other schemes following that. The Minister needs to come to the House as a matter of urgency and tell us how he will ensure the local authorities and AHBs involved will get the money to deliver those homes because we cannot have any further delay.

In regard the Housing Commission, Mr. Michael O'Flynn, who is a very well-respected Cork builder, has presented a very stinging criticism of the Government's housing activation office. He said it is not what the Housing Commission recommended, not underpinned by legislation and emergency powers and will not do the things he, the Housing Commission and others suggested it would. Sinn Féin fully supported the Housing Commission's recommendation of a housing delivery oversight executive. For the life of me I cannot understand, one, why the Government did not do that and, two, why it is trying to misrepresent a bad policy proposition as something other than what it is not. Do not listen to me, listen to the member of the commission who partly wrote that section. He is saying the Government got it wrong and I agree with him.

Then there are the cuts to the social housing acquisition programmes. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the decisions made by the Minister at the end of March and early April are devastating the ability of local authorities to prevent families from homeless through the tenant in situ scheme, and get single people, in particular, out of emergency accommodation through housing first. Why, when we have rising levels of homelessness, the Minister would cut funding for homeless services is beyond me.

Then we have the other delays. It is all very well folks from Government coming into this House and saying that we need planning reform, more water utility connections and more ESB connections but the Government is not investing the money in the staff and in the infrastructure. That is why we have this problem and maybe some of those from Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael, who have been here longer, should let their colleagues know that you guys have been in government for a decade, you guys have been underinvesting and you guys have been failing to recruit staff - planners and housing staff for local authorities, the board, etc. That is why they are having the problems in their constituencies, not due to the view of the Opposition.

With regard to Uisce Éireann and ESB in particular, a year and a half ago Uisce Éireann stated it needed an extra €2 billion to upgrade water and wastewater treatment so that we could move from 30,000 to 40,000 to 50,000 to 60,000 homes. It is still waiting for an answer from the Government. When will that answer come? Increasingly, we have almost everybody bar the Taoiseach telling us that given the limited grid capacity we have, we cannot continue to allow data centres to connect to that grid - they already take 20% of our energy - at the expense of housing. Everybody is telling us that and I am sure the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, when he is asked privately, probably agrees. The idea the Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, is saying there is adequate grid capacity for homes, public transport and data centres simply is not true.

So, where are we at? We have had a decade of bad Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael housing policy: a decade of rising rents, rising house prices and rising homelessness with more than 4,500 children in emergency accommodation tonight. That is a stain on this Government and on the parties in it. At the same time, we are not seeing an adequate delivery of social, affordable rental, affordable purchase or indeed private owner-occupier homes for people to buy. That is why the Raise the Roof campaign has called for a demonstration in Dublin for next Tuesday at 6 p.m. That is why the progressive Opposition has combined to table an alternative emergency Private Members' motion. That is why the Raise the Roof campaign has called for a demonstration in Cork city, for all of Munster, at 2 p.m. at the National Monument on Saturday, 21 June because the Government is failing. It failed during its last iteration and in the iteration before that and I have heard nothing today bit more gaslighting from the Government and Government backbenchers who clearly do not understand the extent to which the Government is immiserating an entire generation of people who cannot afford to put an affordable roof over their heads. The Government can spin all it likes but the facts speak for themselves. The Government is failing and until it listens to us, the commission and to others, it will continue to fail and the people the Government represents and we represent will continue to suffer the inability to put an affordable, secure and adequate roof over their own heads.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Two weeks ago, Cork City Council announced an affordable housing scheme. This will be delivered through the Department's funding and by Cork City Council. There is shock that it will cost just under €400,000 to buy one of these properties. For years people who cannot get a mortgage and who do not quality for social housing have been contacting my office and I have been telling them about affordable housing. Those people are now asking me: where is the affordable housing because for most families this is not affordable? To give an idea, the maximum someone who is on Cork City Council's social housing list - that is three adults and four children - can earn is €48,000. The average is much less, probably €44,000 or €45,000. The minimum income threshold to qualify for these affordable houses is €71,500. That is €24,000 in the difference - maybe €25,000 - between the average family's earning. What about those people who are trapped in the middle and who cannot qualify for social housing, cannot get a mortgage and now under the Government's scheme cannot get affordable housing? Does the Government know what it is doing? Does it know what these people can afford? About the only thing they can afford is a plane ticket to Australia and that is for sure. This is State-sponsored emigration that the Government is driving, through its lack of housing, investment, and by letting down generations.

We are saying to people considering emigrating, the parents or grandparents of someone who is looking at emigrating, or a person or family who cannot afford a mortgage and all of those people who are angry or frustrated at this Government's housing policy failure to come to the National Monument in Cork on 21 June at 2 p.m. This is not just Sinn Féin but it is across all political parties in the Opposition, unions under ICTU, charities, homeless organisations, and student unions under the Raise the Roof banner. Everyone is coming because the Government has failed and people want action. People want homes.

I spoke to the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, a few weeks ago about the tenant in situ scheme. The Taoiseach made a statement. The Minister, Deputy Browne, made a statement. I know of two families who became homeless last week despite all of the Government's promises about funding. I know of two more who will become homeless during the next two weeks. I ask the Minister of State a straight question. Will Cork City Council and every local authority get the funding to prevent more families and children going into emergency accommodation and becoming homeless because this is one problem the Government can fix it if wants to?

Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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The fundamental difference between the Government's attitude towards housing and the Opposition's attitude is that the Government thinks - the Taoiseach said it again today - that the answer to all the problems is just to provide more units. He believes that providing houses that have rents of €3,000 per month is okay so long as there is more supply in the market. He thinks that is going to fix everything. It is a market-based policy which has been failing for years and it will continue to fail in the future.

A housing officer on Kerry County Council recently told me it is like a jungle out there. We are now dealing with more older people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s who are renting houses and are made homeless. There is a situation in Kerry where all of the people who need emergency accommodation in the county are put into one place. A person might live an hour or two away from Tralee but that is the only emergency accommodation that is available for that person. After five or ten years of this Government - whatever way you want to call it - and 14 years of Fine Gael in government, that is the situation for people seeking emergency accommodation but, in addition, there is no affordable housing scheme in Kerry. We saw the recent changes to the tenant in situ scheme. There were three very worthy cases into which a lot of work had been put by the local authority. There were a lot of effort and these are people who really needed to be helped out. Sale was agreed but now they cannot progress the sale or sign contracts to give these people the security they deserve and require.

A couple of years ago, the Government announced a new tenant purchase scheme. The terms and conditions of that scheme specified that the sale must be completed within four months. Anybody who knows anything about buying a house or conveyancing knows that is impossible. When it was raised in the Dáil, Micheál Martin said it was a cop out by Kerry County Council when it sought basic details as to how the scheme was to be implemented. It is clear to me that there is no plan. Today's announcement was more chaos and more confusion for people who are vulnerable. People are looking for answers. They are going to get their answer. They are going to get their answer this day week outside the Dáil and they are going to get their answer in Cork on Saturday week.

Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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The housing crisis that the country is currently in the grips of is affecting entire communities, none more so than the communities I represent in east Cork. What was once known as a great region with welcoming towns, strong community spirit and national beauty is now grappling with the growing problem of the lack of social and affordable houses. As we speak, there are currently more than 300 empty council houses in County Cork, of which 100 have been vacant for more than two years. While these homes remain idle, the rate of homelessness in Cork has reached an appalling level. In the past three years, the number of children spending more than 12 months in emergency accommodation has jumped by 171%. In April, a shocking 650 adults were in emergency accommodation across Cork. In that same month, Cork City Council shut down its tenant in situ scheme due to insufficient funding. We have seen the pressure intensify in places like Midleton, Youghal, Cobh, Carrigtohill, Fermoy, Mitchelstown and others. The demand for housing is so high but supply is not keeping up with it. Too few social and affordable housing projects are being built. The planning process is so slow, and short-term rentals sit vacant while families go without roofs over their head.

We need this Government to treat housing like the emergency that it is. Housing is not a commodity; it is a human right. The Government's failures on housing have become normalised, which is shocking. Nobody expects anything from this do-nothing Government which constantly fails our communities. There are solutions to the housing crisis, however. We in Sinn Féin are calling for the immediate reinstatement of the tenant in situ scheme, the reinstatement of the no-fault eviction ban, a freeze on private rents, and the Government to provide adequate funding to Cork County Council to build enough council and affordable homes to tackle the housing crisis and end homelessness for good.

Other Deputies mentioned the event on 21 June at the National Monument in Cork city. I am calling on everyone to come out and show the Government that we have a housing emergency and to bring attention to other failings - the 10,000 people on boil-water notices, failing mental health services in east Cork and flooding issues. I am asking everybody to vote with their feet and show this Government that it is not providing what it should.

Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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This week I spoke to a woman in Kildare town who is facing the prospect of homelessness. She told me, "I have done everything right, and now the State is slowly killing me." The pain and dread she is feeling as the clock runs down is absolutely crippling. Her landlord is selling up and she simply cannot afford to re-enter the private rental market. Just a few weeks ago in this Chamber, we discussed double-digit rent increases in Kildare. Homelessness rose by about the same figure last year as well. This woman is a nurse in Naas General Hospital who has served her community for nine years. She is also a single mother to a beautiful nine-year-old girl. She is about to fall into homelessness. The Government knows this story well. Its own Department of housing has said private rental is the second most common route into homelessness, yet renters are being punished again and again. It is shameful. Families like hers are falling through the cracks and are squeezed by a cost-of-living crisis that this Government pretends no longer exists. Too many are earning just above the threshold for help but are still living month to month, one bit of bad news away from sleeping in their cars.

Tá céimeanna gur féidir linn a thógáil le feabhas a chur ar an scéal. Ba chóir go mbeadh maoiniú ar fáil don scéim cís costais do thionóntaí in situ de réir an éileamh atá amuigh ansin. Ní féidir leis an mbean seo aon chúnamh a fháil toisc nach bhfuil aon airgead fágtha ag Comhairle Contae Chill Dara chun aon teach dara láimhe eile a cheannach i mbliana. Rud eile a bhfuil géarghá leis ná criosanna brú cíosa a choinneáil mar a bhí. We need to ensure the tenant in situ scheme is adequately funded to meet the needs that are out there and we need the RPZs to be applied across the board. Instead, this Government is too busy protecting those who are already set up and settled and it wants to woo institutional investors. When will the Government stand up for the ordinary people in their 20s, 30s and 40s and give them a chance to have a home of their own so they can start their families, have a little peace of mind and live with the dignity they deserve?

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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We are in a housing emergency. This is an ongoing crisis that this and previous Governments have failed to come to grips with. They have not even acknowledged the scale of the crisis they have delivered to us. Later this evening we will debate a motion on the huge number of vacant council homes that lie derelict, but this crisis extends far beyond that. Renters face extremely high rents of €2,405 per month, on average, in my home city of Limerick. Those in the market to purchase a house in Limerick can expect to pay €320,000 on average for a semi-detached three-bedroom home. This is an increase of 10% since December 2023. Those who are in the unfortunate situation of having become homeless find it increasingly difficult to extract themselves from that nightmare. Every month there are more people availing of State-provided emergency accommodation. The latest figures show that 15,500 people - of whom 4,775 are children - are in such accommodation. That figure does not include those who are on the streets or those who are moving night to night from couch to couch because they do not have a place to call their own. Service providers in Limerick have repeatedly told me over the years that they have to turn people away from their doors every day as they do not have capacity. The failure to tackle runaway rents, allowing no-fault evictions, the failure to curb the cost of house purchases and the inability to provide secure accommodation to those on our housing lists impact families and particularly children.

I have absolutely no doubt that a future Taoiseach will stand up in this Dáil and apologise on behalf of the State for the way we have treated children in emergency accommodation and, for many of them, destroyed their potential for growth. These are real people impacted and children damaged by our housing failures. There have been far too few housing completions to make any impact on the number of Limerick people in need of housing, and the cost of rental properties also plays a role in this regard. In some cases, three generations of families are living under the same roof in already small homes. There are families working off rotas as to when an adult child can avail of a bed or must content themselves with a couch. This is the 21st century and we have families living cheek by jowl in these conditions. Why? It is because house prices are out of reach of the average worker, private rent is too expensive and the list for council-provided homes has people waiting years to be housed. Against this crisis the Government did act and brought in the useful tenant in situ scheme, but it has now cut it and it is not working for families. It is a housing emergency and it needs to be treated as such. As my colleagues have done, I encourage everybody in the Munster area to come to Cork on 21 June and stand up and demand housing.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have failed utterly to tackle the housing crisis.

It is the number one issue in our country. Whether it be a renter's tax credit, a ban on no-fault evictions or limiting the level with which renters can be additionally burdened, in each incident the Government has dragged its feet in taking any action on this. What it has done has been too little and too late. In virtually every instance, the Government then finds false justification to reverse course in the face of a rental market even more cruel than before.

Today, we hear that renters are once again to be punished for what are the Government's housing failures. Its haphazard proposal of a four-tier rent pressure zone regime will leave renters worse off. Has it thought about older people who are going to retire? How will they afford these rents of up to €3,000 per month? For young people who are now out there trying to rent, how are they supposed to rent at €3,000 a month? They do not make this in their salaries. While many have given up hope of ever owning their own home, for those who have secured a mortgage, the Government continues to allow the banks to withhold the benefits of cuts to the European Central Bank interest rate. Irish banks have failed to pass on as many as four or five interest rate cuts to their consumers since the general election - squeezed homeowners, Government indifference. Sinn Féin has outlined what is needed to rectify this, namely, create a dedicated multimillion euro fund, stop artificially capping what councils can recoup and ensure a turnaround time of 12 weeks on council-owned properties.

George Lawlor (Wexford, Labour)
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The current housing crisis in this country can only be described as a catastrophic failure of leadership and policy, leaving countless families in despair and homelessness while developers and landlords profit from the misery. The Government's inaction and ineffective measures have turned the dream of so many of getting a social house or owning a home into a cruel joke. In my county of Wexford, as of yesterday, there were 2,818 households on the housing list. That number is households, not individual people, and the response of the Government can only be described as ambitionless. In the recent announcement for social housing across the country, the Minister, Deputy Browne, declared that the reason there was no allocation for Wexford was, effectively, that it was doing grand and was meeting its targets. The targets for County Wexford, with nearly 3,000 households languishing on the housing list, are 189 homes for 2025 and 193 social homes for 2026. These are absolutely paltry numbers when we consider the number of families crying out for a roof over their heads, a place to call home for life and security of tenure.

Of course, the real figures of the housing crisis are completely masked by the fact that so many hardworking families and individuals are prevented from accessing the housing list in the first place because of the insulting income thresholds. I will give an example of the ridiculous reality in my county. A couple, both earning just the minimum wage, are prevented from accessing social housing supports or going on the housing list in County Wexford because they are deemed to be in excess of the threshold. In fact, they are deemed to be well in excess of the threshold, preventing them from receiving any assistance. They are both earning the minimum wage and are deemed to be earning too much.

What happens to these hardworking people who happen to have a job? They are forced into the private rental market and in many cases condemned to poverty as a result. They are forced to pay thousands of euro every year in rent to the private sector because their low wages are deemed to be too high. These people are plunged not only into despair but into poverty as a result of the policies that have been foisted on them by this Government and the previous Government when it comes to the provision of social housing in this country. These people have simply no hope of ever accessing either a social house or purchasing a house themselves despite working hard day in, day out to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.

I will give a real-life example of the damage the Government's policies are doing. A family whom my office and I are working with, a husband and wife with three children with additional needs, were forced to leave their home last year and move into a damp, 30-year-old mobile home just outside Wexford town. What was their crime? He was a hardworking father with a wage that put them €625 above the Government's ridiculously low thresholds. These are the real-life results of the policies of the Government and how they have devastating impacts on hardworking families. It simply has to stop.

Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour)
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In the changes announced today, there is an air of desperation on the part of the Minister of State and the Government to try to drive up housing supply. By lifting the cap on rents in order to attract institutional funding, the Government is effectively condemning workers and families, in Dublin in particular, to a lifetime of astronomical rents when there are fewer and fewer options to buy. Young workers, those new to the city and those evicted will not stand a chance. It is about pulling up the ladder from those who are trying to find rental accommodation. There will be some protections for those in rental accommodation, but only up to six years. Rents are already impossibly high in this city, at over €2,000 and growing at just short of 5% this year. Often, the rent pressure zone cap is breached because people are having to accept rents increased above the 2%, faced with no alternative.

I want to understand from the Minister of State what he thinks the impact of these changes will be. Apartments are the future of living in Dublin. The Government has made clear to people that it does not believe homeownership of apartments will ever be a possibility. We saw that a number of years ago with the bulk-purchase regulations that were brought in only for houses and not for apartments because, as we were told at that time, we had to leave bulk-purchase for apartments to attract institutional investors. It did not work then. I am not clear as to how raising rents will provide an absolute guarantee that we will see a big rush of money into the State, given that these funds will often be looking for a guaranteed rent. This is the critical point here. About 5,000 evictions have been notified at the start of this year and about €500 million has been spent on HAP. With higher rents, how are people going to pay these higher rents the Government is now accepting that people should pay. It will put them into the hands of social housing waiting lists and HAP and increase that State bill all the more. I do not see any fiscal prudence in all this.

I have one question. If there is a downturn, can rents fall as well as rise? That is the premise of linking them to the CPI. We must remember that in 2008, when prices began to fall, it took ten years for consumer prices to get back up to their 2008 levels. Are we going to see some sneaky introduction of an upward-only rent provision in the regulations or the legislation when rents are increased? We all remember that from the recession. It seems institutional investors will be demanding that in the regulations. We need clarity from the Government as to how exactly that CPI measure will be introduced.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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While the Government says today that the measures announced aim to improve the circumstances of renters, in reality it will make life more difficult for many renters across the country who are not covered by the provisions, such as renters who voluntarily leave tenancies, renters who are near the end of the six-year expiry date or will come to that in 2032, students and those who will rent new-build apartments. This announcement aims to do two competing things, neither of which it will achieve properly, namely, protect renters and incentivise private investors. Investors do need certainty and they have had anything but from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, which have chopped and changed their housing policy at least eight times, particularly regarding the private rental market over the past decade. For nine years, we in Labour have called for the entire country to be made into a rent pressure zone, a measure we have long believed to be necessary as long as the system of regulating rents by these means remains. This is something both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have continually refused to do. They even went as far as describing the measure as unconstitutional back in 2017. This raises the question as to why the sudden volte-face. The only answer I can see is that the Government is scrambling and is fudging this as it goes along.

There is a poverty of ideas in this Government. It is too timid to implement a nationwide freeze on rents or, on the other hand, to remove rent controls entirely as the vulture funds have been lobbying it to do. Instead, it has cobbled together a halfway house that seeks to satisfy competing interests but in reality will satiate neither. There is a clear need to implement a better way of regulating rents and its own expert-led Housing Commission report, which the Government continually ignores when it suits it, has stated the need to do this.

A system of reference rents merits serious consideration and is something that we in the Labour Party proposed as far back as 2016 in our social and affordable housing Bill. I will seek to introduce legislation on this in the coming weeks. If the Government were serious about protecting renters without caveat, it would pass our renters' rights Bill, which includes measures such as a complete ban on no-fault evictions without exception and a register of rents so that tenants can have transparency on the rent that was previously paid on a property. Thousands of renters leave tenancies every year, particularly students, many of whom are packing up at the moment or have packed up by this time. They are already anxious thinking about where they are going to live next year. By allowing landlords to reset rents in between tenancies, the Government is throwing these people, and eventually all renters, under the bus.

I cannot understand why the Government is doing this as a stand-alone measure and not in conjunction with its new housing plan. The proposals as they stand will invariably lead to an increase in homelessness and they should be done in tandem with a successor plan to Housing for All. The proposal to cap the rent of new-build apartments at the rate of inflation creates more uncertainty for renters, given that inflation increased to 7.8% as recently as 2022, not to mention the added unpredictability posed by the Trump Administration and the proposed tariffs.

It is clear that we need more supply but this must come with the condition of affordability. We have some of the highest rents in Europe and it is very clear, with what the Government is proposing, that it is baking in upward-only rent increases. The Minister, Deputy Browne, spoke to the media today about a tranche of key decisions to come. To make such a fundamental change to the regulation of renting without, at the very least, doing it in tandem with the Government's new housing plan is reckless. Tweaking planning exemptions for attic conversions and granny flats does not make a suite of measures. The failure to include critical infrastructure, such as water infrastructure, in the Government's changes to planning exemptions represents a missed opportunity.

An announcement was made in recent days on public-private partnerships, PPPs. The PPP model was championed by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael as recently as 2021. The Government's Housing for All plan recommitted to the PPP delivery model and despite misgivings, local authorities across the country were incentivised and did use PPP to deliver social homes. Last Wednesday, a bombshell was dropped on local authorities, with the Minister and the Government deciding to halt bundle 3 of the Dublin City Council-led PPP project, which has ramifications well beyond just Dublin. My Labour Party colleagues from right across the country have raised the very real possibility of hundreds of shovel-ready homes being stopped in their local communities. This is especially true for my Kildare South colleague, Deputy Mark Wall. In the midst of a deepening housing crisis and record levels of homelessness, this is shocking. If the Government is going to go down the PPP route, at the very least it should see the existing bundles through. In Dublin City Council, not only is bundle 3 up in the air, but subsequent bundles 4 and 5, which could deliver thousands more social homes, are now also facing an uncertain future.

Last year, before the election, the Government promised to oversee the building of 40,000 homes in 2024, only to miss that target by a whole third. Now it seems the Government is going to fail to meet its targets again this year. Indeed, the Government has never met its targets for social and affordable housing. I understand the concerns that people have about value for money - I have them myself - but where was this concern when PPP was introduced? The Government was warned about this. Local authorities and the Opposition warned the Government. Given that a lot of these projects are so close to having builders on site, it is unfathomable that with the stroke of a pen, the plug has been pulled.

What is going on in the Department? How will the hundreds of homes that are supposed to be delivered in PPP bundle 3 now be delivered? Can the Minister offer certainty over the future delivery of bundles 4 and 5? What action is the Government going to take to ensure that procurement processes that have concluded will not end up subject to lengthy legal battles because the Minister decided to do this out of the blue last week? Six housing projects are included in PPP bundle 3. The bundle 3 project board, which includes Dublin City Council, was informed by officials from the Department of housing last Wednesday that the Minister would not be sanctioning approval for the national social housing bundle 3 projects to proceed to contract award due to concerns with costs. These projects were scheduled to commence construction this month. The board was also told, even more worryingly, that future PPP bundles will also need to be reviewed. How does the Government intend to deliver bundle 3? Will bundle 4 and subsequent bundles be going ahead? If the Government is discontinuing the PPP schemes, that is understandable and fine but I do not understand why it is doing it mid-stream. It should see the bundles that are already in the pipeline through and then, if it feels the need to pull the plug, pull the plug.

Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Housing remains one of the defining issues of our generation. If we are serious about solving it, we must deal in facts, not sound bites as some in the Opposition have done and are focused on. Let us start with where we are now. Housing supply has increased significantly since Fianna Fáil re-entered government in 2020. In 2022, 2023 and 2024, completions were 29,644, 32,525 and 30,330 units, respectively. Almost 92,500 homes have been built for people in the past three years, the highest level since 2008. Over 5,900 homes were completed in quarter 1 of this year alone and commencements in 2023 and 2024 totalled nearly 102,000 units, representing a strong pipeline. In my area, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, we are seeing real delivery. The Shanganagh development, of which I have spoken previously in the Chamber, delivered 597 homes, including 200 social, 305 cost-rental and 91 affordable homes, which are almost complete. Families are moving in as we speak. St. Lauence Park in Stillorgan, Ballyogan Rise and Wood Park are also in progress, as is Dundrum Central, which will include 900 homes. Supply has increased and we are determined to drive it further.

There are still challenges, however. The reality is that we need more homes faster, especially in urban areas and for renters. Striking a balance between supply and protection is at the core of the Government's new housing plan. Today the Minister, Deputy Browne, has brought forward a suite of reforms that directly address the concerns of renters while supporting new supply. These include the extension of the rent pressure zones to all existing tenancies, a cap on rent increases at 2% or the rate of inflation and a ban on no-fault evictions by large landlords. At the same time, rents in new homes will be linked to inflation, which is essential to attract investment in apartments and increase rental supply. Urban development zones, replacing strategic development zones, SDZs, will fast-track large-scale housing projects with State-backed infrastructure. The housing activation office will break through delays. These are practical, targeted reforms, not empty promises.

Locally, the housing pipeline in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is strong. Just this month, the council approved three Part 8 schemes, including 124 homes at the Blackglen Road in Sandyford and 70 affordable purchase units at Leopardstown Road. I thank the Taoiseach for his personal intervention to help to secure up to 800 homes at the Leopardstown Racecourse, a site that can deliver at scale and which is close to transport links and jobs. This is work that makes a real difference. It is not about sound bites but delivery. In that regard, I acknowledge the Minister's own role in this. I met with him recently and was impressed by his focus on solutions, openness to ideas and commitment to progress. That stands in sharp contrast to what some in the Opposition have offered today. There was little beyond criticism and a failure to bring any serious, costed proposals. What we need now is momentum in this sector, across all levels of government, with local authorities, developers and communities working together to deliver homes for our people. We need to remain focused, stay constructive and deliver.

Martin Daly (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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As the Minister of State knows, as does the Minister, housing is the most pressing challenge facing the State today and will define the Government's success. While the previous Government met its targets under the Housing for All policy, rising demand means we are now acting swiftly to further increase supply and improve affordability. The public, especially younger generations, expect urgency, but the Government must ensure solutions are effective and do not create unintended consequences. Tough decisions are being made by the Minister of State and the Minister and will continue to be made. The rationale for those decisions must be communicated to the public to build confidence and expose the paucity of the Opposition's solutions.

Planning is a major frustration, especially in the Roscommon-Galway constituency, where slow processes and inconsistent decisions hinder development. The planning Bill 2024 and the planning framework of 2025 allow local authorities to rezone where there is critical need. Ministerial leadership is needed to maintain that momentum. We must insist on a proactive planning culture in our local authorities.

Private investment is vital. A total of €6 billion to €7 billion is committed by the Government this year but it cannot carry the entire estimated investment requirement of €20 billion, especially in apartment construction. Private equity is critical.

Striking the right balance between security of tenure, rent controls and supply is critical. The rent pressure zone reforms align with the Housing Commission's recommendations. The Opposition has offered no credible and coherent solutions. Opposition Deputies are excellent at enunciating the problems but they do not provide solutions. Across my constituency of Roscommon-Galway, limited serviced sites and poor planning have stalled housing supply in places like Ballinasloe, Boyle, Castlerea and Roscommon. Rent and private housing options have dwindled, leading to a demographic shift as young people remain longer at home or leave the country. In my town, Ballygar, a decade passed without the provision of any new homes. Now, a new wastewater treatment plant has gone to tender, providing hope. This is the type of infrastructural development that must be expedited, as I know the Minister of State and Minister recognise.

We must use all available technologies to ensure delivery. Offsite or modular construction is vital. I have been assured production can be scaled up once there are predictable supply lines from the State. I welcome the modern methods of construction action plan published by the Minister, Deputy Lawless, in the past few days. It provides a roadmap to a sustainable industry that will help us to meet our targets.

Balanced regional development is essential. In Roscommon-Galway, thriving communities are ready to grow but the lack of affordable housing stands in the way. The status quo cannot hold. This crisis affects families, the economy and essential services as workers such as teachers, gardaí and nurses struggle to afford homes. I know the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy Browne, understand that. We must continue to deliver sustainable solutions. Today's announcements form part of a succession of measures they will take to deliver on the commitments in the programme for Government.

Catherine Callaghan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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Carlow-Kilkenny has much to offer in terms of amenities, education and jobs but we have a difficulty with providing houses for the people who would love to live there. Some of the difficulty relates to the provision of water and wastewater treatment plants and road infrastructure. Developer-led infrastructure provision and investing in services is the only way we will move forward. It is imperative that we make provision in this regard. In County Kilkenny, not a single housing development can currently be built in The Rower, Inistioge, Toher, Mullinavat or Graiguenamanagh. This is simply due to the lack of wastewater services.

I balance this by noting that in parts of Tullow and Muine Bheag in County Carlow, great work has been done by Uisce Éireann and Carlow County Council. We have future-proofed capacity for many more houses in both of those towns, which are the second- and third-largest settlements in the county. However, in Carlow town, which is a university town, I am reliably informed it will be quarter 1 of 2031 before wastewater services provide capacity for the houses developers are ready to construct in the town. We also need more student accommodation in Carlow town to help sustain our thriving university.

The programme for Government commits to bringing Uisce Éireann, local authority planners and developers together at the start of a project to ensure the smooth running of the development. However, this provision is for developments of 100 or more homes. In my constituency, it is smaller developments that are struggling the most to get connected. For example, a proposed development in The Rower of approximately seven to ten homes, for which planning permission was given, cannot proceed due to the lack of wastewater capacity. Allowing for developer-led provision would be done under the strict regulation and guidelines of Uisce Éireann. This, in turn, would take the pressure off the system, and off Uisce Éireann, and free up more moves in a quicker timeframe. We must recognise the good work the people in Uisce Éireann are doing locally and give them the support they need to drive on services and infrastructure delivery. Without doubt, further investment is needed in the organisation. That funding must be ring-fenced for use specifically in providing new housing in the future.

We also need more investment in roads to access and unlock potential sites for home building. Snoddy's Road in Carlow town, for example, has been partially completed. All that is required to complete the project and unlock the land that has potential for housing is a further 800 m stretch. There are already footpaths and street lighting. Another example is the proposed Tullow ring road, which would unlock housing development potential in an area that already has sufficient wastewater capacity. I have already asked the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, to include the ring roads for Carlow town, Kilkenny city and Tullow in the national development plan in order to secure the much-needed funding for those projects, which can only go to enhance and develop counties Carlow and Kilkenny, and provide more housing, as we go forward. The infrastructural needs of both counties, which I have outlined, must be met if we are to fulfil the programme for Government target of delivering more than 300,000 new homes by the end of 2030.

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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Housing provision is so dysfunctional across every part of the sector that it is no exaggeration to say it is an emergency. Day after day, I have to inform people who are on the housing list for six, seven, eight or nine years that they have many more years left on the list. That was not the case four or five years ago. The situation has grown worse and worse and I see nothing the Government is doing that will improve it. There are families so long on the housing list that children who were toddlers when they went on the list are now adults. Unable to move out, they are penalised because they are working and their wages push them over the income limit. One family I know of had been 16 years on the housing list before being removed by the council because they went over the income threshold.

People who are renting are terrified, waiting for a termination letter from their landlord. Some landlords are using Part 4 of the Residential Tenancies Act to evict people and then double the rent. The new rules for renters will cause huge distress and concern. It seems there will be a free for all within a six-year period and the RPZs will not be worth the paper on which they are written.

Students should be excitedly looking forward to a new chapter in their life as they go to college, with many thousands moving to a new city. However, foremost in their mind is the question of where they will live and how much it will cost. I heard a student yesterday telling RTÉ about the €800 cost per month for accommodation from Monday to Friday. The students are kicked out of the property on a Friday by the landlord, who then rents it out on Saturday and Sunday before moving the students back in on Monday. That does not happen in a functional housing market.

In my constituency, the starting price in a new development down the road from me, Luttrellstown Gate, is €520,000 for a three-bedroom house, with the cost going up to €800,000 for a four-bedroom home. In the Government's eyes, affordable housing starts at approximately €400,000. One could not write this stuff. The Government has let this generation down and by the looks of its new rent strategy, it will also let down the next generation. I ask everyone who cares about the young people who cannot rent or buy to go out to Kildare Street on 17 June and make their voices heard outside these buildings.

Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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As we speak, there are 83 vacant homes in my area of South Dublin County Council, five of which have been empty for more than a year. Each one of those homes should have a family living in it. It is disgusting that adults are stuck living in their parents' back bedrooms while the house next door is boarded up.

Young people are boarding planes to Australia when they could be starting lives in these boarded-up homes. Children are walking past these boarded-up homes on the way back to hotel rooms they are sharing with their families. This is simply not good enough. Tonight Sinn Féin will bring forward a motion calling for urgent action to get these vacant homes back into stock and get families living in them. I am calling on everybody to support it.

It is also time we introduced a social housing passport. I have raised this numerous times, including with the Tánaiste previously. Many people have contacted me who started out in one local authority, had to move to a different local authority because of the housing crisis, have had children and integrated into that community and now have been told that if they would like to remain in that community in a council home, they will have to come off the list on which they started thereby losing all their time and starting again. This is a direct consequence of the housing crisis. Nobody should be waiting over 12 years for a home. A social housing passport would allow people to carry their time from one local authority to another. This is a very fair request.

Rents in my area are at an all-time high. People tell me that new rents in some of the new builds in Lucan come in at over €3,000 per month. I have never seen the likes of it. What does the Government do to resolve this? It looks after industrial landlords and the vulture funds by removing the sole protection renters had, which was rent caps. Instead the Government will link rents to inflation. The Minister of State can shake his head all he likes. It is going to link rents to inflation. One would need to be living under a rock not to realise what inflation has been like over the past number of years. The price of food, petrol, gas and electricity has gone through the roof and now the Government wants to do the same with rents. Shame on the Minister of State and shame on this Government. Once again, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have shown that they are firmly working hand in hand with industrial landlords.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Today the Taoiseach said that rents are supposedly not going to increase but we know it is the case that rents will increase as a result of the measures brought in today by the Government. We are in the midst of an emergency that the Government accepts is an emergency, with rents higher than they have ever been in the history of the State - they are completely unaffordable and unsustainable - and we will now see rents rise even further. The removal of that rent cap between tenancies means we will see rents increase across the board; make no mistake about it. The move today by the Government was a signal to landlords to go ahead and increase the rents. It is telling them that they can do so - that is what the Government is saying to landlords of existing properties and landlords of new properties who build them. The Minister of State is shaking his head, but it is the case that in introducing these measures, he said it is about activating the supply of institutional investors delivering housing. If it is about activating supply, it clearly does that through allowing higher rents because that is what the Minister of State said is needed, that is what lobbyists have been saying and that is what institutional funds have been looking for and now the Government has given it to them. Every tenant will face increased rents within the next six years.

We will see rents rise even further but between now and March when the changes come in, we will also see landlords evict tenants so that they can then have the market rent charged.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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They cannot.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Of course they can; they are doing it every day. How many evictions took place last year? There were thousands and thousands of evictions. They can evict a tenant through the sale of the property to a family member. Landlords are already on the radio saying that they are leaving properties vacant for two years so they can charge the market rent. They now know that next March, they will be able to charge the market rent full stop. That is what the Government is allowing them to do.

Regarding the idea that the Government is introducing protections for renters, half of all renters will not get these protections because they are in properties owned by landlords who own fewer than three properties. Make no mistake about it - anyone who has lived in the private rental sector in this country knows this means that landlords will be able to turn to tenants and say "the rent is increasing and if you don't accept it, we will evict you or if we can't evict you directly, we won't do the maintenance". It will force renters out so they can charge the market rents. These measures will reduce the one protection renters had. This is a policy shift back to institutional investor funds. It is about making build-to-rent corporate landlords central to housing policy and renters will face evictions. We will see more homelessness as a result of these policies.

The no-fault eviction ban should be for every renter and it should be implemented immediately. We need a register for rents and a freeze on rents for three years. The Government has been lobbied very heavily by institutional investors and landlords; that is so clear. The records are there. The lobbying register shows it. The Government has bent to those lobbyists instead of protecting renters. Renters are already struggling - they are in poverty and they cannot afford food, basics and healthcare. Families are going into homelessness as a result of this and what the Government has done today has made matters worse. It will lead to rising rents. When will rents be high enough? Is it when they are €4,000 or €5,000 per month? At what point will the Government say we need to freeze rents? When will rents fall? These policies will not lead to rents falling. We are disgusted with this policy and will fight it as much as we can.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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So far this Government has said that housing will be its number one priority but it appears that its members are not even talking to each other and continue to think up housing policy on the fly. It cannot even get its story straight on today’s announcement about rent pressure zone reform. So far, we have seen thinking-out-loud policy briefing about sheds in gardens; a housing czar that no one wants, including prospective candidates; record homelessness; abandoning the tenant in situ scheme; and commencement and completion figures miles off the Government's own commitments. I do not have time to talk about the calamitous situation facing our utilities like water infrastructure and grid capacity. Who is in charge here? Who is thinking up this policy? Where is the evidence to give anyone assurances that this situation is likely to get better?

This Government is the latest Government to get housing and homelessness utterly wrong. The 2011 Fine Gael and Labour Party programme for Government committed to ending homelessness. It failed. The 2016 confidence and supply programme for Government committed to ending homelessness. It failed. The language in the 2020 Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil-Green Party programme for Government changed from eradicating to reducing homelessness and it still failed. Now the 2025 programme for Government talks about supporting people in homelessness. We have gone from an ambition of eradication to support. When did we give up on the ambition to end homelessness? When did the Irish State decide to accept any level of homelessness? There are 4,775 children in homelessness.

Today the Children’s Rights Alliance published its annual poverty monitor. It tells us that 100,000 children and young people experienced consistent poverty in Ireland in 2024. This report provides more evidence of the catastrophic impact on children of the failed housing policies of successive governments.

I sincerely hope this Government will be better than the previous three but from what we have seen so far, we should fear the worst.

Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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The Government strategy through the course of the housing crisis has essentially been to increase developer investment - in a nutshell - and it has failed catastrophically. The Government now seeks to double down by creating a system that will result in the removal of the 2% rent pressure cap nationally for new builds. The whole point of building more houses is to drive rents down, not up. This proposal puts landlords and their profit margins above renters and their basic right to a roof over their heads. Housing developers are making tens of millions in profit yet the Government continues to hand out tax credits and cuts and now paves the way for mass evictions to maximise profit. Níl sé sách maith. Ba cheart go mbeidh an gnáthdhuine ag breathnú ar na praghsanna ar Daft.ie ag dul síos. Déanfaidh an plean seo a mhalairt.

Expanding RPZs nationwide is a welcome move but the cap, in line with inflation, is specifically designed to raise rents and ensure all new builds are unaffordable. Throughout autumn and winter, we will see more and more people forced onto our streets and out of their homes. Government policy created a housing emergency, then a housing crisis and now a housing disaster. This Government has consistently implemented policies that benefit institutional investors instead of renters, yet it is keen to keep digging. Measures such as the restriction of no-fault evictions are welcome but are outweighed by the consequences of the rest of the proposed changes.

The Government has failed to recognise its duty of care to those who are already struggling to pay rent or find somewhere affordable to live, particularly those on lower incomes. These people are already forced to choose between heating and eating. The vast majority of people in Ireland are not able to save money or buy a home of their own. There are now multiple generations of young people locked out of home ownership. The hole that has been dug for them is reaching all the way to Australia, Canada and New Zealand where so many people in my constituency of Dublin Rathdown have told me their children have gone. This lack of affordability results in a concentration of housing in the hands of institutional investors who see a house as an asset and not as a family home. These measures make our crisis of affordability worse than ever. The Government has failed to see the real human cost of the guaranteed higher rents as a result of this policy.

As a result of this proposal from the Government, a landlord will now be incentivised to bully out their tenants, or refuse to renew a lease and raise the rent by hundreds if not thousands of euro overnight. The Government needs to recognise that without a serious reset of housing policy, as called for by the Housing Commission, the housing catastrophe will only continue. There will be more poverty, more exploitation and more and more homelessness. There is a solution to this, and it involves releasing at least some of the more than €8 billion in the Government's 2024 surplus to build social and affordable housing, and viewing housing as a human right and renters as people rather than as commodities to be exploited.

Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)
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Homelessness is well recognised as both a cause and a consequence of mental health difficulties. For the many thousands of children in this country who are caught up in the various forms of homelessness, whether that be conditions of extreme overcrowding, couch surfing, time spent in domestic violence shelters or emergency accommodation, mental health and developmental outcomes are likely to be very serious and far reaching. In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the need for safe and stable accommodation is fundamental to the realisation of all other needs for the person in order to attain a decent quality of life. Therefore, a foundational aspect of mental health is being denied to many of our young people by Government policy. That basic sense of security many of us take for granted, which stems from the fulfilment of the core need for a home, is damaged by homelessness and precarious living.

There are also other psychological effects, as Róisín McDonnell, family services manager with Focus Ireland explains:

All the normal childhood stuff goes out the window. Sleepovers are gone, friends coming to play, even family visiting may be gone. They will have to give up pets. They cannot celebrate birthdays. They have no space for their toys. Even the kids who seem to be coping at first, may become withdrawn or they may start acting out. They will never say 'I am angry because I am homeless' but they are a ball of confusion. 'Why has this happened to me? Why is my mam upset?'

Róisín hits on an important point, which is that children have great difficulty in emotionally assimilating to traumatic experiences. They often blame themselves for misfortunes they or their families are caught up in. Homelessness pervades the young person's experiences. Not only do they live with an internal lack of security, but they see worry, stress and unhappiness etched on their parents' faces day in, day out. Seeing a parent or parent figure distressed or at their wits' end much of the time is a particularly deep psychological wound that many of these children will carry with them into adulthood. The core response from the Government must be recognition, in the first instance, that housing policy over successive Dáil terms involving the same parties has failed. We will get nowhere fast if it does not face this reality. Countries such as Austria have implemented housing policies that have been much smarter. Austria has been more versatile in how it has used public money, which has consequently been more effective. As a party, the Social Democrats have put forward pragmatic solutions to the housing disaster.

The mental health fallout from the housing emergency will continue until the Government treats the issue as an emergency. We need to see much increased investment in the range of supports needed for homeless people, including multidisciplinary treatment for addiction and mental health difficulties, as recommended and highlighted by organisations such as Depaul and Simon.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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It is my strong belief that all stakeholders responsible for delivering houses are not on the same page and do not share the one ambition. In this case, I separate out the banks. It is almost impossible for young people seeking their first mortgage to get a mortgage from the bank to build their own house or to purchase one. The mortgage approval rate may be high and may look impressive but when you look at the figures, there are the numbers drawing down mortgages and those just waiting because they have not been approved for enough or cannot afford it. The banks need to come up with various financial packages and mortgages to enable those who want to draw down a mortgage and to make it possible for them in respect of the amount and so on.

Likewise, insurance companies have placed many difficulties in front of those seeking a mortgage, particularly those who may have had health issues in the past. They are being told they cannot get mortgage protection and are not given any other options; that is it for them. This needs to be reviewed.

The whole planning process regarding accommodation needs to be relaxed. When it comes to right-sizing in local authority housing, there are too many people waiting for a right-size to get a house that is smaller than the one they are in and for that house to then accommodate a family. This is not happening at any great speed and needs to be looked at by the Minister, Deputy Browne, and the various chief executives of the local authorities.

The biggest problem here - I have heard it from other Members - is Irish Water. I know many towns and villages throughout counties Carlow and Kilkenny that simply do not have the facilities to enable planning permission to be given because Irish Water will object and say it does not have the services there. This issue exists in every single county and needs to be addressed immediately. It is only by way of ministerial intervention that we will see any change in this area. I say to the councils around the country: for god's sake, do something to act as proper managers of your tenants. At present, there is no management and there are people in flats or apartments or groups of houses who are experiencing the sale of drugs on a daily basis, the abuse of their rights as a tenant or antisocial behaviour. It is shocking that tenants are forced to continue to live like this when the local authority, which is the landlord in this case, is not facilitating a proper standard within its own housing stock. I ask that this be part of the review of the activities of local authorities.

The small solution of selling a big house, if you own it, and building a smaller house to accommodate a different family structure needs to be looked at. In many of county development plans, if you build in one area, you are not entitled to build again. Yet, if you were allowed to build, you would downsize and make another house available to the market. It is that simple. All the stakeholders should be brought to the table to hear what all of us have had to say and they should be asked to do something about participating in the project fully.

Maeve O'Connell (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the opportunity to make a statement on housing, which every representative in the House knows is the most important issue facing families in our country today. I was delighted with the news last week in my constituency, Dublin Rathdown, that an agreement had been reached with the Land Development Agency for the transfer of 17 acres, giving the Government the ability to develop 800 new homes on the site. This land was identified under the Government's Housing for All plan and shows that real progress is being made. I also commend the foresight used in selecting the location. Every new housing development must take into account the need to deliver additional services to ensure residents are well supported. This site located right by the currently unused Leopardstown Luas station, meaning this development will activate existing infrastructure and residents will have access to efficient public transportation from the get-go. Such a large development will of course have a huge impact on the local community. That is why it is important the LDA and local councils work with local communities to ensure the best outcomes for everybody so that we can deliver the greatest number of houses possible, of benefit to everybody in the community, with the least amount of disruption. That is why I am also glad to see confirmation that Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council will create a new master plan for Leopardstown. We all understand housing delivery must have an all-of-government approach. Many Deputies highlighted the issues in that regard. We cannot focus on one section and expect everything else to fall into place. This is why master plans are vital. Taking this Leopardstown area as an example, for those not familiar with the area, it skirts right along the edge of the M50, with the Leopardstown Road being a main distributor road off junction 14 and linking to the N11, so 800 new houses could bring 800 new cars. With the readily available local public transport infrastructure already in place, this project will keep Dublin moving, not clog it up. Public transport infrastructure alone is not enough. We face a problem where planning applications are held up for too long by objections and judicial reviews which the Government is taking strong action to address. Stopping the clock on permissions held up by judicial reviews will be an important lifeline for keeping developments alive which our country would otherwise have lost, an important measure to ensure we do indeed have housing for all.

Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I wish to raise two issues in this debate, which I welcome. The first is planning certainty. If you talk to any home builder of a medium scale, 20 or more units, they will tell you planning uncertainty is a huge challenge when it comes to being able to build new homes. This includes the additional information processes in local authorities, adding uncertainty to their timelines, and unclear decision timelines in An Bord Pleanála appeals process which adds months of uncertainty to their projects. Judicial reviews add months if not years of uncertainty. A local home builder told me recently that planning uncertainty means he has to plan for three to four years in total from start to finish even for a small scheme delivering a small number of units. It is really challenging for them. As a result, Bank of Ireland and AIB will not lend so development finance is a struggle. Deputy O'Connell mentioned, and I welcome, enacting key provisions of the planning Bill urgently as a priority, even if it means getting through the inevitable court challenge from some quarters. We have to put our shoulder to the wheel and get it done to shorten those timeframes.

Bank of Ireland and AIB are not lending because of these risks. The HFA will lend to local authorities. It has very good rates for social housing building - 1.75% for ten years and 2.25% for new lending at 25 years. The margin of the Home Building Finance Ireland on the other hand can range from 4.75% to 7.5% over EURIBOR, one of its pricing rates. There is an inherent unfairness to those rates. HBFI has a huge opportunity to provide development finance to a whole coterie of medium-sized builders but the rates have to be competitive. AIB and Bank of Ireland are just not lending. People cannot get development finance. It is 20% upfront and then these guys building have to provide the rest themselves at a very high rate. I urge that the HBFI be looked at seriously to scale it up as a lending institution with competitive rates somewhere near the HFA rates to local authorities. There is so much demand that the risk is really limited for HBFI.

Ann Graves (Dublin Fingal East, Sinn Fein)
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The housing emergency is the biggest challenge facing people in Ireland today. There is no leadership or strategy from the Government. Its response has been flip-flopping, chaos and confusion. This has a direct impact on public services with teachers, gardaí, firefighters and nurses unable to afford rent and unable to get a mortgage. It is time for this Government to wake up to the damage its policies are doing to our communities. My office in Fingal East is inundated with housing queries. Every day, I deal with people languishing on housing lists, families in overcrowded conditions and those constantly living with the threat of no-fault eviction. I am dealing with a family of six in a two-bed duplex in Swords who have been on the housing list for 24 years and a senior citizen living in Malahide looking for a transfer due to serious antisocial behaviour. He has been on a transfer list for two years but Fingal County Council has nowhere to move him to. I am also dealing with a 71-year-old man renting in Portmarnock who worked for 50 years, retired last year and can no longer afford the rent. He told me it is either rent, food or heat - he cannot do all three. I am also familiar with a woman living in Donabate with her severely autistic child who cannot get housing despite being on the housing list for ten years. These are just a couple of examples. The Government's decision to cut funding for the tenant in situ scheme has made things worse. This scheme was a homelessness prevention tool. Now, families do not know where they will go once their notice to quit has run out. It is shameful when there are 2,500 vacant council homes in the State. In Fingal alone, 126 council properties lie vacant. There is growing anger and frustration with the Government which has abandoned communities and failed to deliver on every housing promise. People will bring that anger to the gates of the Dáil. I call on members of the public, unions and housing groups to support the Raise the Roof rally on Tuesday, 17 June at 6 p.m. outside Leinster House to stand up and fight back. It is time for this Government to listen to people.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Tá an oiread sin gnéithe den cheist tithíochta seo nach féidir liom iad ar fad a chlúdach san am atá agam. Déanfaidh mé déileáil le gné amháin ach cosúil le mo chomhghleacaí tá mé ag iarraidh ar dhaoine teacht le chéile anseo Dé Máirt seo chugainn ar a 6 a chlog mar chuid den Raise the Roof campaign.

Tens of thousands of young couples are locked out of renting, never owning their own homes. These couples have okay wages but because of Government policies and the wholesale subsidisation of private landlordism by successive governments, these couples face a dilemma - live apart in their parents' homes with their parents and siblings or, as in far too many cases, move out of their local areas or emigrate. Young people are competing against vulture funds, AHBs, landlords, scrupulous or unscrupulous, and councils, which are buying up new and second-hand homes. Many even consider giving up work on the presumption they may get a home quicker on the council list. Many couples are earning too much for the affordable homes threshold and too little for a mortgage for even a modest house, even after qualifying for the State's inflationary subsidies, such are the obscene prices being sought for homes. It is €450,000 for a two-bed 1930s Dublin Corporation home with a BER of E or less and in need of modernisation.

That is madness and unsustainable. Another €100,000 will be required to modernise those homes. There is also a need to address prices from estate agents. Every home I know of in Dublin 10 and 12 is going for 15% to 20% over the advertised price for the last five years or so and the agents know this is happening. They also know the amount couples have and can go up to because people must produce their mortgage approval in advance of any bidding as part of the documentation. Agents then play those couples off against each other. The advertised prices should be the price that is got so people cannot play around. It is absolutely obscene what is happening.

Tá ceisteanna eile maidir leis an Ghaeltacht, maidir leo siúd atá gan dídean, maidir leo siúd atá ina gcónaí ar na sráideanna agus maidir le tithe sóisialta. Is gá dúinn díriú isteach ar na ceisteanna seo. Tá géarchéim ann. Impím ar dhaoine brú a chur ar an Rialtas seo ionas go n-admhódh sé go bhfuil géarchéim ann agus gá le gníomh láithreach chun an fhadhb a leigheas, seachas an tslí a bhfuil sé á déanamh atá ag cur leis an bhfadhb seo in ionad a fhadhb a leigheas.

Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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There are a lot of things I could say about housing, but because of the announcement from Government I feel compelled to comment on the new rent proposals. The new restrictions, such as they are, or rather the changes, will mean there are no controls for new builds and no controls for new tenancies when tenants change. This is going to drive up already sky-high rents. This is really going to increase them further. They are going way beyond what ordinary people can afford.

Most tenancies end voluntarily. People move on. They get housed by a local authority, purchase a house, move to new rental accommodation or they have to go to a larger house because of family size. The other side of that is people downsizing, and then some people are just emigrating because they are giving up. When all those tenancies change over it is a free-for-all in terms of what landlords can do with the rents. The Daft report last year showed Laois had the fastest increase in rents outside Dublin. Those renting a house or apartment are being told by some there is a problem with profitability. Pull the other one. There is nobody who really believes that. The charging of rents of up to €3,000 within the Pale and over €2,000 outside the Pale means huge profits are being made. That is €36,000 per year in rent alone for a bog standard house. Families and workers who are on €400 to €700 per week simply cannot afford that. One week’s pay is completely wiped out.

There is a myth as well that the number of units is decreasing, but it has increased. Between 2016 and 2022 it went up by 45,000 and the evidence since, as I understand it, shows that as well. The commission report set out a need for reference rents, which the Government ignored. They would be based on location, family size – I raised it with commission members again today at the committee to clarify what they were saying – and the average rent in the area and it would be just index-linked increases. The energy rating would be counted as well. That at least was some kind of half-decent proposal. What we have instead is what has been set out by the Government today. What will happen is rents will be driven up way beyond what ordinary families can afford. There will not be no-fault evictions, but there will be so-called fault evictions because people will not be able to pay the rent. They will owe so much in rent landlords will be able to get them out. Once they are free that is another group of houses and flats where rents can be increased. This is a recipe for chaos for families and workers.

Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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I will start by thanking the housing Minister for bringing forward, in his first few months, a Bill that will address some of the changes needed to the defective concrete scheme. However, I have communicated to him there are a few issues that need changing.

The decision, for example, to fix a cut-off date for the increased scheme cap and updated grant rate as 29 March 2024 is simply unfair. It flies in the face of what the previous Minister for housing, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, said when he publicly promised early movers would not be penalised. Only 43 homes were actually completed by 29 March 2024. That means the vast majority of families well into the process of rebuilding their lives have been unjustifiably excluded. This is unfair treatment. As well as this, splitting eligibility mid-project is complete madness. It creates a two-tier system that punishes those who acted quickly and in good faith according to what the former housing Minister told them to do, often at great personal and financial risk. We have people who started their build in August 2023 and completed it in March 2024 before the cut-off date who are now not entitled. However, a neighbour who goes on 29 March is entitled to the 10% retrospective.

To make matters worse, the doubling of timelines for rebuilds through no fault of the homeowners has not been acknowledged. The auxiliary grant support scheme will run out and people will be forced to pay rent and mortgages at the same time with money they simply do not have. Who gains from this? The answer is greedy contractors who are inflating prices while vulnerable families are left with the burden to carry as they try to get through this scheme. I acknowledge the genuine impact this has had on the homeowners.

The housing Minister engaged with us and I acknowledge that. Together we can create a scheme that is fair and leaves absolutely nobody behind. We need to listen to those who are affected. I am urging the Minister of State to speak to the Minister and reconsider the fixed date of 29 March 2024. I know many people who will be left behind if this date is used and I am sure this is not the Minister’s intention. He can fix this but he needs to get rid of that date.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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It is again very unfortunate the Minister is not here for a debate on a slew of new measures affecting the whole rental sector.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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He will be here.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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The debate is nearly finished.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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He is on the "Six One" news at the moment.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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He is on the "Six One" news. He is not here, is what I said and the debate has been going on for an hour and a half.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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He will be here in a minute.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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We have not had a chance to question the housing Minister, that I can recall, since coming into this Dáil. I wanted to register that. We have already seen him raising this great idea of the housing tsar. Somebody commented that we have not seen a tsar disappear so quickly since 1917. That idea has gone.

I will address some of the measures announced today. No-fault evictions have been banned for landlords who own four or more properties. How will the tenant know? How would a tenant have any idea how many properties their landlord actually owns so they can challenge an eviction if it is put to them? Before the Minister of State says they are all registered with the RTB, we know the vast majority of tenancies are not actually registered with the RTB. We have TDs in this Dáil who have a very big problem remembering they have tenancies, never mind other landlords registering them as well. The other thing is balance. What balance is there? All the cards are in the hands of landlords now. There is no need for this balance. Landlords already have all the power and nothing has been rebalanced. We keep hearing we must attract landlords back into the sector, but the number of landlords rose last year. This is constantly reiterated. It has been since 2016. Despite this landlords are increasing.

The other issue I want to raise is that the Taoiseach said earlier these measures are to activate supply and we can never reach our target of 50,000 unless we take some measures like these. It is this pivot Fianna Fáil has taken that we need to shift to the private sector. I do not accept that. There is huge capacity that is not being realised in the local authorities and the public sector. I have given the following example and I have asked the Taoiseach about it and am now asking the Minister of State. There is a strategic land bank in Scribblestown in Ashtown owned by Fingal County Council. The council says it can provide 7,000 homes. There has not been a meeting between the Minister and the council about that. It has asked for €200 million to help start development.

It has not received a reply as far as I know. That is a strategic land bank. We do not need to be kowtowing to the likes of Urbeo in Hansfield, for example, which is currently charging tenants a minimum €2,000 for a two-bed property. This is miles out of the city centre. We need the State to develop public housing. That is the only solution.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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We are facing a housing crisis of unprecedented scale. More than 15,500 people, including more than 4,700 children are living in emergency accommodation. This is not just a statistic; it is a national failure, and one that demands urgent action. At the same time there are an estimated 80,000 vacant or derelict properties across Ireland. These are properties that could and should be homes. This is not just inefficiency; it is injustice. That is why the Dereliction and Building Regeneration Bill 2025, recently proposed in the Seanad by my Green Party colleague, Senator Noonan, is welcome. It offers real and workable solutions. It expands the legal definition of dereliction. It strengthens enforcement powers. It replaces a weak levy with a 7% annual tax on the property's market value and it introduces a new town centre first planning path to bring vacant properties back into use. This Bill is practical, targeted and overdue, but despite the rising levels of homelessness and that untapped stock of housing, the Government proceeded with a timed amendment delaying this Bill's progress by up to a year. This is deeply disappointing. With thousands of people still without secure housing we need delivery and not deferral. Day after day the Taoiseach stands up and says that on the matter of housing the Government is open to all Opposition proposals and solutions. However, the reality is that time and again when the Opposition comes with reasonable solutions they are voted down and delayed.

In government, the Green Party introduced the Croí Cónaithe vacant property refurbishment grant of up to €70,000 to restore empty homes. We supported the town centre first policy, which boosted compact growth and prioritised urban generation, and we successfully opposed the efforts to delay the land hoarding tax, a tax that this year has already brought in €40 million to the Exchequer. The Government cannot afford to let another year slip by while homes lie idle, and this housing crisis worsens. There are solutions on the table. The Green Party's Dereliction and Building Regeneration Bill is one of these. Let us stop managing this crisis and start fixing it.

Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)
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Housing is the single greatest issue facing my generation. I start with an issue I have raised in this Chamber a number of times, and will continue to raise, which is modern methods of construction, modular homes, log cabins or whatever we want to call them. I recognise the Minister of State's position on it. I welcome the work done to date by Government on planning exemptions relating to backyard development, but we need to go further. I have said repeatedly and say it again that there is a place for these types of homes across Ireland, particularly rural Ireland. I canvassed in the local and general elections last year. There are countless laneways in north Tipperary and north-west Kilkenny where I see those modular homes and log cabins. They are working for people who cannot afford a house otherwise, and for a lot of young families. We need to see planning for those, but furthermore we need to allow planning retrospectively for houses that can meet the planning requirements. I am not saying there should be a free for all. I am saying that where wastewater and water connections, utilities and proper planning can be met, the ban that is there in many county councils should be removed and they should be allowed to be built. They are the only form of affordable housing that many young people in rural Ireland can afford, whether young people trying to take over a farm, or a young person who might have a site from their parents they could potentially build on. It is an option for some. It is not a perfect solution, but it will work, and we need urgency in allowing that to happen.

There is also the issue of development contributions in rural Ireland. I am not particularly pleased that they have now stopped, and the one-off house in particular has to pay its development contribution and the levy again. People contact me and ask what they are getting in return for it. To be honest, in a rural area, they are getting essentially zero except the privilege of building on their own site. We need to re-establish that waiver to help those people with the cost of building. There is also student accommodation in Thurles in my constituency. Thurles has two universities, TUS and Mary Immaculate College. Mary Immaculate is bursting at the seams, and TUS is continuing to grow now that it has university status. The town desperately needs student accommodation. Every year we see students rush to Thurles to try to find somewhere and it is only putting more pressure on a market that is already ferociously under pressure. We need to see purpose-built student accommodation in Thurles as a matter of priority. I also want to see affordable housing developments built across Nenagh, Thurles and Roscrea in north Tipperary to begin with. Affordable housing is a major issue in my constituency. We are seeing lots of active planning permissions on an issue I will come to shortly - wastewater capacity. However, affordable housing is a must, particularly for younger people and working families who are trying to get a start in life with a home on their own.

On wastewater capacity, I name Nenagh, Cloughjordan and Ballycommon as three examples I have raised multiple times in this House. Nenagh is the largest town in north Tipperary. There is no capacity in the system at the moment to build any houses, despite the fact that approximately 1,000 could be built in the morning. There are probably other constraints, but there is planning there for them. Social housing and private developments are being held up because of a lack of capacity. We thought there was capacity in Nenagh until the census was done. Even without new houses being built, because population has grown to the extent it has, there is now not capacity in that system. We are looking at 2029 for that to be completed, and that is just not good enough. Cloughjordan, where I live, has been facing major constraints for 15-plus years, waiting for Irish Water at least since its establishment to get its act together and build out the plant to allow us build homes in our village. Similarly, Ballycommon could have more than 30 houses built in a small village. We need the investment in wastewater and water infrastructure going into Uisce Éireann to remove those blockages and allow those houses to be built.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for facilitating this debate. I do not want to focus on individual issues, initiatives and schemes. I will focus on the big picture in terms of the acute housing crisis we are in. To me the only solution is ramping up supply across all forms, whether new builds, reuse of existing buildings and better utilisation of existing buildings such as over office, over shop and so on. That will help deliver where we need to be in terms of social and affordable housing delivery, cost rental and private purchase, which is sometimes not mentioned when we discuss housing. We have to provide options for individuals and couples to purchase housing as well. In many areas they do not have new builds to purchase, which is a significant issue.

Supply is the only solution when you look at the scale of the problem. As a country we are putting forward more than €6.8 billion per annum in trying to stimulate housing activity. That is a huge amount of money. Should we spend more? Can we spend more? I believe we should. We have to increase that because we are in an acute crisis whether or not you want to use the word "emergency". I would use the word "emergency". We are in a housing emergency, and we have to up that public expenditure. Allied to that we have to significantly increase private investment. I note the comments made earlier, but it is delusional if you do not accept that we have to increase private investment in housing. That has to happen. For that to happen, developments have to become viable. That is the key issue. Many developments are not viable, whether you are talking about apartment building or house building. The reason they are not viable in many cases is because of land costs, servicing costs, lack of infrastructure and so on. We have to address those issues. I am hopeful the national planning framework will improve land availability, and that the national development plan review will increase investment in infrastructure, whether water infrastructure, wastewater, drinking water and energy. We cannot look at housing in isolation. Investment and capital expenditure in infrastructure such as water and energy are absolutely linked to housing and the housing crisis we are in. We have to look at that separately, but we also have to acknowledge the scale of the problem here.

I have just come from the housing committee where we met the Housing Commission. The key point it made is acknowledgement of the scale of the problem. We currently need approximately 50,000 houses per year to meet the demand now, and that is not addressing the deficit and shortfall that have built up over years. To address that we need even more houses delivered. We are a long way off where we need to be, and we have to acknowledge that and treat it as such. We need to bring forward measures in an urgent and radical way to try to address the crisis we are in. That is the key message that has come across today. We need to be radical and treat this as an emergency, and we need to do all in our power to make things happen as soon as possible.

Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I acknowledge the progress made this year to date. The CSO has announced 5,938 home completions happened in quarter 1 of 2025, which is the second highest first quarter since the series began in 2011, and that apartment completions in quarter 1 of 2025 were up 13.4% on quarter 1 of 2024. Many more apartments need to be built and I hope the announcements being made will increase the number being built.

Regarding the NPF, there is a need to be ambitious about not just town and village centres but the outskirts where there is green space available on which to build additional housing and apartments. What is critical, along with the building of homes, is that we build the social infrastructure to go with them. That means schools, childcare and playgrounds, as well as the water and energy we often speak of in here. It is primarily around the building up of sustainable communities.

I look at Kildare North specifically. The waiting lists for childcare in Kildare are astronomical. People are number 400 or number 500 on childcare waiting lists and women cannot plan on going back to work after maternity leave because they cannot secure childcare. It is not sustainable. It is the same with schools. Parents who come to me are worried about getting their child into school for the following year, be it primary or secondary school.

The basics for any community are the likes of playgrounds. There is, for example, no swimming pool in the entirety of north Kildare. All the swimming pools are in the south of the county. My home town, Maynooth, has a population of 17,500, not to mention 17,500 students, and there is no community centre. That does not lend itself to building a sustainable community. When we look at building additional infrastructure in houses, apartments, towns, villages or wherever it may be, it is imperative we look at the social cohesion and the sustainable element of those communities.

We cannot just build shells. Shells are not homes. Homes are defined by the families and individuals within them but the collective living in those homes is what builds the community. Community is at the heart of what this country stands for. We have amazing communities the length and breadth of the country. However, if we do not go down the route of building sustainable communities, we leave ourselves open to societal problems further down the line.

I appeal to the Minister of State and Government. While it is imperative we build as many homes as possible, be they duplexes, houses or apartments, a critical part of that plan is to ensure there is adequate social infrastructure in place. That is schools, crèches, community centres and sports organisations in towns, villages or communities and there must be adequate ground for them to grow as the community grows.

A difficult task lies ahead but progress is being made. We see that by comparing the quarter 1 figures with those from quarter 1 of last year. I ask that a sustained focus be given to sustainable communities.

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Across Kilkenny, almost 100 council-owned homes lie empty. Over 60 of them will remain empty throughout 2025. Almost one third have been boarded up for over a year. Dozens of families and people in dire need of housing have been blocked from a home of their own this year. While the Government will try to pass the blame on to the local council, the fault and blame lies solely at the feet of the Government and Minister for housing.

The black and white reality is Kilkenny County Council does not have the funds to turn these homes around. For each vacant council home, central government gives the council a mere €11,000 to get that home fit for tenancy. Giving just €11,000 to bring a house up to spec shows how utterly removed the Government is from the real cost of building works. It is an insult to the council and the people of Kilkenny. This housing crisis is devastating families and workers across the State. To see dozens of council-owned homes lying vacant across Kilkenny and over 2,500 lying vacant across the State drives home that this is not a priority for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. If it was and there was political will, local councils would be appropriately funded and would not be given the pence they are currently given.

Sewerage and water treatment facilities are a fundamental requirement of expanding communities and building new homes but Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, in their wisdom, did not see fit to provide the necessary infrastructure in the upgrading of facilities across Kilkenny and Carlow. As a result, many prime sites for building are left untouched and towns across Carlow and Kilkenny are left paralysed. We have to invest in the basics because without them villages like mine of Knocktopher and others across the State are dying on their feet. Shops, pubs, etc., are closing. It is ripping the heart out of communities. It is laughable for the Government to say housing is its number one priority. We are in the middle of a housing crisis. It is time to start acting like it.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North-West, Sinn Fein)
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This man-made housing crisis continues to spiral out of control. We have once again, to the shame of this and previous Governments Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been members of, reached record homeless figures. Over 15,500 people are now officially considered homeless, of whom over 4,600 are children.

Bad as they are, these numbers do not take account of those affected by what is described as hidden homelessness. They are those who have to sleep in their car or coach surf because of their insecure housing situation. An estimate of those affected by hidden homelessness suggests that in 2024 over 30,000 people were in this precarious situation. A great number of these hidden homeless became homeless because they received a notice of termination from a landlord who was selling up the property or wanted it back for his or her own use.

It is clear the country faces a significant housing shortage. Even young professional couples with good incomes are finding it impossible to get on the property ladder. Adding to their difficulties are the investment funds, which have sufficient resources and at times were given tax exemptions and access to grant funding to allow them to buy up large numbers of apartments, houses and new estates. Not only are these vulture funds depleting the housing stock, they are also driving up property prices and rents. The serious lack of social and affordable housing stock is a scandal in a country ranked in the top three or four richest in the world.

The Government is consistent in one thing: failing to reach its own targets. The national planning framework says around 50,000 new homes will be needed each year up to 2040. However, the Government has consistently missed its targets for delivery of social and affordable homes. The tenant in situ scheme has been effectively nullified by its actions and restrictions, having prevented over 2,000 families being made homeless in the past couple of years. The Government should give local authorities the lead in building social and affordable housing. They can replicate the work of housing bodies such as Ó Cualann, which have been building and delivering affordable housing for years. This Government has proven time and again that its policies cannot solve the housing problem. The number of people I see every day in my constituency office who are about to be made homeless is beyond alarming. There will be no respite from this until radical action is taken.

Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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This Government has been saying - as did the previous one and the previous two before that - that housing is its number one priority. If so, I cannot understand why it did not take up Independent Ireland's strong advice and policy that this should be declared a housing emergency. This is an emergency. A recent poll in the Irish Independent found 65% or 67% of people said housing is the biggest issue to be dealt with in this country, but it has not been dealt with. The declaration of a housing emergency would have dealt with a lot of areas that have been continuously not dealt with by the Government. It would have given us a chance to reform planning laws urgently, limit irrelevant and vexatious objections, fast-track water and sewerage infrastructure and basically stop the blame game. Everybody is pointing the finger but nothing is getting done. We would prioritise housing projects that have been stuck in limbo.

If the declaration of a housing emergency dealt with that alone, we would start making moves to provide homes for people.

Our biggest trouble in this country is that we have objectors who object to planning permission applications for major developments and one-off developments. They object to sewage treatment plants. In the name of God, the Government has no understanding of how to deal with these people. It has left them to take control of the country. A small handful of individuals have held this country to ransom. The Government should be looking at these serial objectors. Some people have a legitimate cause to object but most are serial objectors. They need to be severely fined. The Government needs to stand up to them because they are bullies but it has accepted that and laid down before them. They have destroyed our country. Developments have been blocked. The sewerage infrastructure that is needed in local towns and villages has been blocked because people who do not live in the area have decided to object to it. The Government has not stood up to them. That is true of one-off planning applications in rural communities. We need to make changes.

At the time of the formation of the Government, there was talk that log cabins would be allowed. Why are we not moving somewhere in that regard?

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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We are.

Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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That is another thing that is coming down the road. People are calling me now. I want to see the legislation.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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It will be introduced this year.

Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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Is it there today?

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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It will be introduced this year.

Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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This is the problem. Everything is about kicking the can down the road.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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No.

Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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I would appreciate it if something were announced today and dealt with in a week or two rather than dragging on down the road. That legislation could have been put in place. We were advising it should be introduced years ago but nobody would listen to us.

We must consider the building of houses in cities. We are building out but what about building up? When I am in Dublin and places such as that, I meet people who say they are well able to do that but are being blocked from going forward.

The turnover of council houses is an issue in Cork and elsewhere in this country. There is a problem with the speed of turnover of houses. We meet many people who would love a home, would do it up and look after it themselves. Some people leave the houses in meticulous condition but at the same time, there is a hold-up in bringing it back into the system again.

I have many clinics over weekends and through those, I find creeping into society again is that the powers that be, the planners, are blocking people from getting farm sheds. I know we are talking about building houses but farm sheds are important for young people who are trying to find a way to belong on their farms. They are being asked what they need a shed for. Nobody wants to build a farm shed unless they need it. I cannot understand how a planner can ask such people to prove they need a shed by asking how many cattle they have. Nobody is going to put themselves to an expense of €30,000, €40,000 or €100,000 only that there is a need for it on their farm. Surely, they should not be asked those kinds of silly questions.

The whole point is that infrastructure is at a standstill in most parts of this country. In my constituency of Cork South-West, you cannot build a house in Dunmanway. I am bored of saying that in this Chamber. Imagine that in a town as big as Dunmanway. It has a great opportunity because of its close proximity to Cork city and towns such as Clonakilty. Dunmanway feeds into Clonakilty, Bandon, Bantry and Skibbereen. You cannot build one house in the town and there is no possibility of building there for the next five or six years. The same is true in Shannonvale in Clonakilty, where raw sewage is pouring into the sea and nobody cares. The same is true in Rosscarbery. Nobody gives a damn. Ballydehob and Goleen have been waiting for a sewerage system for 25 years. In God's earthly name, what has gone wrong with this country? It is at a complete standstill. The Government needs to stand up and call a housing emergency. It should listen to Independent Ireland for once. That is what we are asking. It will be embarrassing to take the hit for a couple of weeks and people will roar and shout, but we will get things done if that happens.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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This is a record-breaking Government for all the wrong reasons. Under Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents, there is record-breaking homelessness, as well as record-breaking house prices and rents. Rents, incredibly, have doubled since the bottom of the crash. This must be the most pro-cyclical Government in the history of the State. Deputy Micheál Martin was a member of a Cabinet that crashed this country. His actions led in part to a significant spike in house prices and rents in the noughties. His policies led to the crash, which gutted the value of people's homes. Incredibly, Deputy Martin, in partnership with Fine Gael, has pursued policies that have led to an eye-watering peak in rents and house prices. I cannot think of another minister in the world who was, in part, the author of two eye-watering housing inflation spikes and one devastating crash. The Government is in reverse in practically every single housing indicator in the country.

The housing crisis is damaging so much of Irish society. It is impoverishing renting families and making mortgage slaves of other families. It is damaging the economy because businesses cannot get workers and is driving wage inflation. It is damaging the mental and physical health of the many people who are homeless. Members of generation rent are forced to emigrate to Australia and Canada.

Incredibly, the housing crisis is also changing the very nature of the Irish family. The number of children families are having is collapsing at the moment because families are forced to delay having children because they cannot get a home. The Government is shredding the fabric of Irish society at the moment. It should be mortified and humiliated. It should be apologising to the Irish people but it is not. Instead, it is jacking up rents on hard-pressed families again. It is the objective of this Government's plan to increase rents for families. The idea that we have to increase rents to provide more is nonsense.

The plan also prioritises the rental sector over the house building sector, which provides people's homes. If the plan works, it will put families into competition with big international investors to buy up those scarce homes.

The idea is that the Government is looking to increase rents to increase the level of supply, but it could do that another way very simply. In the North of Ireland, there is no VAT on construction. If the Government were to zero rate VAT on construction in this country, it would increase the level of market activity and reduce the prices for families who want to buy homes. That would bring more builders into the sector and make it easier for people to buy homes instead of investing in Uisce Éireann. A representative of Uisce Éireann told me at a committee meeting that it will not be able to fill the gaps in water infrastructure that are stopping the building of houses before 2050. That was an incredible statement from Uisce Éireann

I raise the following subject because nobody else is raising it in the Dáil. Dan O'Brien recently published the number of visas that are being issued in this country versus the number of houses that are being built. In 2023, 80,000 residency visas were issued. We cannot keep issuing visas at such a level without affecting rents and prices. We must get to a situation whereby we reduce the number of non-essential visas being issued to ensure that we do not put the same pressure on house prices and rents in the future.

Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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It is now six months since the Government was established and we have seen very little. We now have a moderate and small-scale proposal on the hikes on the price of rent. The Minister said it is an effort to get a balance between keeping rents down and getting investors in. Different lobbies have different statistics to throw out but in places such as San Francisco, for example, rents have risen where rent freezes have been abolished. Even if we get in the supply, it will take longer so many people will be put under pressure with their rents rising when they do not have the market opportunities to look for another rental property because the competition has not been created. It is a seller's market and not a renter's market, as we know.

The incentives for small-scale landlords are not sufficient. Many people may have inherited a house or bought one property, maximum two, as an investment. I note there is a distinction in the Government's proposal between people with up to three houses and those with four or more. We can keep rents at a frozen level and provide tax incentives to smaller landlords to ensure they stay in the market. They are the ones who keep the tenants in the properties. They are the ones who offer lower rents as long as they get guarantees that the house is being looked after. Commercial investors have hiked rents massively. As Deputy Tóibín and others have said, we need a plan to ensure that people cannot come in and buy large blocks of houses. The only way a block of houses should be bought is if it is a part of a strategic plan and those houses are, for example, beside a hospital where we would want to rent houses to doctors and nurses who are starting off in their careers.

Another example is that of an area where there is a shortage of teachers, where there could be affordable rents while people start their careers. The census figures, more of which will come out in September, indicate that the reason people left this country before the economic crash versus the reason they leave now has changed. Irish people are still leaving even when the economy is good, but we have seen mass immigration. That is putting pressure on housing. We need to be more strategic in what sort of work permits we provide. We also need incentives to make sure that the Irish people leaving because they cannot afford a house, such as nurses and teachers, stay in Ireland. They need those incentives and they need incentives to come back.

Ultimately, as everyone has said, it is down to supply. I still do not see why, if not in employee terms but in building, the State should not be the biggest constructor of housing. We did it in the 1950s when we were poor. We need a strategic plan to provide the infrastructure and build the houses. We have not seen that from the Government yet.

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I spent five years on the housing committee during the previous Dáil, and I learned fairly quickly that there is no silver bullet to solve the housing crisis. It is by turning on the supply in multiple different streams that we will be able to reach that. Despite what previous speakers said, we cannot ignore the fact that we are now at the stage where we are building more social or public housing than we have done since what might be called the golden age of social housing in the sixties and seventies. Let us be clear: we are building substantial amounts of social housing.

In the past five years, we have also tried to concentrate on other forms of housing in the form of cost rental and affordable purchase. These are the areas we have to drive home in the term of this Dáil. We need our local authorities to be the ones leading the charge on it. Over those five years, I have identified nearly 2,000 units that have been developed in my constituency. Many of them have gone through Part 8 planning. Some of them have been started through the PPP bundle process. Those 2,000 units will be public housing on public land. They will be delivered by Housing for All and will make a very substantial difference in our constituency. It is important over the coming five years that local authorities know that delivery is the key. Of course, the housing activation office, when it comes on stream, the Minister and the Government have ultimate responsibility for the delivery of housing, but local authorities are the housing authority. That is their role. They often object to being stripped of powers. The power they have is the ability to deliver, and they have the funds and now the new mechanisms to do that.

A number of bundles in my area come under the PPP programme, including bundles 3, 4, 5 and so on. I was very concerned, and I expressed this to the Minister, Deputy Browne, about reports that there appears to be a delay at Shangan, where there are to be 93 accommodation units for older persons, and at Collins Avenue, where there are to be a further 83 social homes, which are included in PPP bundle 3. The delay appears to come down to the fact that the price that came back under the PPP bundle did not prove good value for money for the taxpayer. As a member of the public accounts committee, I think it is right for Ministers to protect public money but what is not right is to not have an alternative plan. If the price that has come back exceeds what we believe to be good value and, as I said, I support that concept, we have to have a very rapid alternative plan in order to deliver. Those homes at Shangan and Collins Avenue are badly needed in our constituency. People who have seen the planning notices are already coming to my constituency office. They have seen the conversations that councillors have had about the units, which were due to go on site this year. We need to make sure they get on site this year.

These locations are backed up by other sites, including the Church of the Annunciation, the Collins Avenue Bring Centre, Wellmount Road, the Ballymun bundle, which has multiple sites, Barry Road, Carton Lands and Silloge Road. All of those are within different PPP bundles. At this early stage, we need to make sure that they do not sit for any length of time in terms of being solved. The Minister has committed to me that is what will happen. We will hold him to account in that regard because delivery by local authorities has to be paramount. They are the ones that will deliver the kind of affordable rental and affordable purchase we can deliver.

If local authorities believe that we will not have their back when they go for a PPP process, and contribute a huge amount of time and effort into that process, only to then find that the funding is either pulled, sanctioned or not granted at the last hurdle, local authorities will default back to not delivering or saying there is no point in them doing that unless they have the support of the Government. I urge the Minister of State, who is a big supporter of delivery and of local authorities delivering, on behalf of people in my constituency who are contacting me, to impress on the Department the need to bring forward a plan as soon as possible for these sites. As I said, I am not in favour of spending hundreds of thousands of euro per unit more than we need to. We should not do that, but we have to have an alternative delivery mechanism if the PPP does not deliver.

Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State is very welcome. It is great to have an opportunity to talk about housing. This is a huge issue. It is a serious issue that consumes all of us in these Houses and in each and every one of our constituencies. It affects our families and communities. In reality, despite all the talk about all the different things, we have to build out of this nightmare.

Fianna Fáil has always believed that every person should have the right to a secure and affordable home, whether that is through ownership, social provision or cost rental. That belief is at the heart of our role in the Government and is central to the work we are doing under Housing for All. This is the most ambitious programme in the history of the State but we need to see more delivery, although we have already seen some. More than 32,000 homes were completed last year. That is the highest annual figure in more than a decade. More than 10,000 social homes have been added to the national stock. The cost-rental model, long championed by Fianna Fáil, is no longer a theory. It is a reality that is giving working families secure, affordable options below market rates. Let us be honest, however, that there is a very long way to go yet. For every young person priced out of the market, for every family waiting too long on a list and for every community under pressure, the progress is not enough and we know it.

We face many structural, financial and infrastructural challenges. We must be unapologetic in tackling each one head-on. There needs to be a mechanism to ensure that critical infrastructure is built, whether that infrastructure involves issues with the electricity grid or water infrastructure. We have huge deficits in these areas. Road infrastructure is also needed to support the development or unlocking of land, such as the port access route in Drogheda. Under the leadership of Fianna Fáil during the previous Government, we introduced the Planning and Development Act. This was a once-in-a-generation reform to make planning faster, fairer and more transparent. We need to see the start of this to make sure that we have results from this legislation.

The Land Development Agency was a huge flagship push by the previous Government to use public land for public good. We are seeing success throughout the country, including in Cork and Dublin, where sites have been activated. However, we need to make sure that places such as County Louth are firmly on that list. I am not satisfied at all about progress in County Louth. The LDA commits to meeting the need for affordable homes for purchase and rent throughout the country but no workable affordable housing schemes are available in Dundalk as yet. Three sites have been identified on which the LDA stated it could build up to 1,000 homes. To date, we have had no real action on making this a reality. Dundalk is a thriving town and is very important to the economic growth of the country. Housing is key to unlocking more growth in the area. I want the Government to make Dundalk, Drogheda and towns like these a priority in ensuring we have affordable housing schemes.

On his recent visit to County Louth, the Minister of State saw the building across Drogheda and elsewhere. There is loads of building. Louth County Council is reaching targets but it must be supported in surpassing those targets. It is working on its voids. To its detriment, it worked through voids at a very fast rate and ran out of money. It has the capacity and ability to work through voids faster. It needs funding for this. It must be supported to do more.

The massive increase in commencements was a big story in 2024. One factor in that was the waiver of local authority contributions, but we have seen a reduction in those commencements in recent years. What is more concerning is the trend of the decrease in the number of new applications for housing developments and housing units. If we do not have planning, we have no supply in the future and there is no way we will meet our targets.

John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Ba mhaith liom caint faoi fhadhb ar leith maidir le cúrsaí tithíochta sa tír: an fhadhb atá inár nGaeltachtaí agus inár gceantair Ghaeltachta. Mar a luadh go minic sa díospóireacht seo, tá fadhb an easpa tithíochta fud fad na tíre i ngach áit. Ach is fadhb ar leith í sin i gceantair Ghaeltachta. Cuireann sí todhchaí na Gaeltachta i mbaol. Más rud é nach bhfuil duine nó daoine in ann cur fúthu i gceantair Ghaeltachta, beidh tionchar aige sin ar an teanga sa cheantar sin agus ar thodhchaí na nGaeltachtaí.

Tá a fhios agam go rachaidh an tAire, an Teachta Browne, go Gaillimh ar an Aoine chun casadh leis an ngrúpa BÁNÚ, grúpa gníomhaithe sa cheantar sin atá ag impí orainn ar fad níos mó a dhéanamh chun soláthar tithíochta a chur ar fáil sa Ghaeltacht do dhaoine atá ina gcainteoirí dúchasacha agus gurb as na ceantair seo iad. Tá súil agam go mbeidh cruinniú maith againn ansin agus go mbeimid in ann réiteach a chur ar an bhfadhb ar leith atá sna ceantair Ghaeltachta.

On that, I know the Minister, Deputy Browne, is visiting Galway on Friday to meet some of the activist groups who are campaigning for further housing options in the Gaeltacht. I hope the outcome of that meeting will be positive because while we have a housing problem throughout the country, the lack of housing in the Gaeltacht puts it in danger. If young people who speak the language cannot reside there, obviously that is going to place its future as a Gaeltacht region i mbaol, in some danger.

I have heard a lot in the debate regarding the lack of infrastructure and the need to expand the areas in our local authorities that are zoned for residential development, and I concur with that. However, in some locations it will be more challenging. There is scope, albeit limited, to increase the amount of zoned residential land within the confines of the boundaries of Galway city. It is the smallest geographical local authority in the country, yet we expect its metropolitan area to expand by 40,000 people within the national planning framework timeframe. The constraints of the city boundary are an issue we need to look at. We do have the MASP area but, again, we need clarity around the planning of it.

Reasonably large tracts of land have been zoned for residential development in Galway city but we have the problem, as has been noted by many other speakers, of the lack of road and water infrastructure to trigger the development of that land. I am looking forward to the work of the housing activation office and the infrastructure task force because as much as we need anything else in the whole area of housing, we need both of those offices to commence work soon. I imagine that come July, when the new housing plan is published, that will feature centrally in it and there will be concrete actions to show us how both of those bodies will work with respect to triggering housing development.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy.

John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I might say one thing, a Leas Cheann-Comhairle, about the provision of public housing. I have consistently found it frustrating that it takes 59 weeks - that is the Department's own estimate - to bring a public housing project from the initial concept to the signing of contracts to begin construction of that project. That is immensely frustrating. It is too long. There is currently a four-stage process on which the local authority must engage with the Department, and approval must be sought at each stage. I think we are duplicating work. As my colleague Deputy McAuliffe said some moments ago, the local authority should be advised that it has a certain budget and that the Department would like to see a certain number of units being developed based on that budget, rather than this toing and froing, which is taking too long.

The programme for Government commits the Government to reducing the four-stage approval process to a single-step process. We should do that at the earliest possible opportunity.

We need to look at the funding for capital acquisition, tenant in situ and the capital advance leasing facility. Local authorities and approved housing bodies are advising us that they are finding the approval process challenging, lengthy and burdensome. That is delaying the commencement of public housing development. We need to look at that, streamline it and get quicker decisions.

Máire Devine (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Most of this Government's housing policy has thrown renters around the country, and in particular in my area of the inner city and Dublin South-Central, under the bus. However, the peculiar decision to severely limit a successful programme, the tenant in situ programme, seems to be the Government driving the bus over my constituents. Why the Minister would cut the legs from under this popular programme, which has helped so many people, is a mystery.

I will tell the Minister of State about just a few of the constituents who have contacted me recently and would be massively helped by a fully funded and functioning tenant in situ scheme. One woman in the Liberties has lived in the same property for nearly 14 years. They only served a notice to quit and contacted DCC in November 2024 to offer the unit for tenant in situ. The tenant's position on the housing list is over 500, meaning it would take decades to place her. She said:

You will be well aware of the dire housing situation in Dublin. To find suitable accommodation is next to impossible. I am extremely concerned, desperate in fact. I find it hard to believe that after 14 years living, working, paying taxes in Dublin and being in the same apartment, my home, that it has come to this. Everything has stopped for me. I find myself paralysed with fear and anxiety and I am asking you for help. Please help.

Separately, a family of six in Crumlin face homelessness after 15 years in the property. They tell me:

The situation has placed an unbearable amount of stress on us all. Tragically, my husband has recently experienced cardiac issues directly caused by the pressure of anxiety of our housing crisis. This is no longer a housing issue. It has become a serious threat to our well-being.

They have applied for hundreds of houses but with no replies, with a notice to quit only a month away.

I want the Minister of State to answer one simple question. Why has the tenant in situ ceased? At face value, if a house in Crumlin is around the €400,000 mark, that will be paid back within 13 or 14 years. It will go back into the housing stock and, more importantly, it gives security to families and individuals. It protects communities and health and well-being. It prevents the trauma of homelessness and moving for children. It is, conversely, value for money. It is not rocket science, so I ask the Minister of State to please answer the question: why has tenant in situ ceased?

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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In my two minutes, I want to focus on the issue of affordable housing in Meath East for working people to buy and rent. I looked at daft.ie before I came to the Chamber. Four-bedroom second-hand properties are €535,000 to buy, on average, with three-bedrooms €430,000 and two-bedrooms €240,000. There are no properties at all to rent.

Not a single affordable unit has been delivered under this or the previous Government in Ashbourne, the biggest town in my constituency. There was a discussion across party lines among local councillors regarding a council-owned site and the issue of affordable housing, and I looked at the minutes of it, which state:

There was a lot of discussion around affordable housing and the Executive shares the Members concerns regarding the lack of affordable housing in the county generally and, in particular, in the settlements close to Dublin. However, it must be pointed out that changes in government policy will be required to address the situation, and this was highlighted to Minister Browne on his recent visit to the county as well as with direct meetings with the Affordable Housing Section within the DHLGH.

The affordable housing scheme from the Government does not work. The Minister of State's colleagues in Ashbourne, Fianna Fáil colleagues, agree with my party colleagues. Many would call them out as being hypocrites; I do not. I say fair play to them. They are absolutely right. They see it on the ground. The Government schemes are absolutely failing and they need to change.

I ask the Minister of State to fund affordable housing in Ashbourne and deliver affordable housing to rent and buy for working people. There needs to be a change in Government policy. It is clear the schemes do not work. As I said, not a single affordable house has been delivered in Ashbourne, the biggest town in my constituency.

It is totally unacceptable. It locks working families and working people out of homeownership and it has to change.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I am delighted to be here for these statements. We are all well aware of the housing issue. It is the single biggest issue and everybody knows that. I believe the Government thinks there is a panacea with Airbnbs but it is not. We had that before in this city where the Government closed down 1,000 bedsits - 1,000 units - and made that many people homeless with no place to go. I think the Government has it wrong about Airbnbs. The vast majority of Airbnbs I know of in Tipperary are solely used for holidays and are bringing people into the area who spend money in the area as well.

Social housing purchases, including the tenant in situ scheme, has been reduced significantly this year. While I acknowledge the importance of focusing on local authority-led social housing builds and the need for properties to go onto the private market, it is a very difficult. The same people who have been in long-term rental accommodation through HAP and RAS schemes are losing their places and they are devastated.

I welcome the appointment of Mr. Jonathan Cooney as the new director of services for housing in Tipperary County Council. I have called him a visionary and for public representatives and for people who are looking for houses, he is a very good man to deal with. The same fund is expected to do everything. We only have €5 million in the budget and we are trying to do everything with that - CAS purchases, social housing acquisitions and the disabled person's grant - and it is simply not enough.

We are blue in the face talking about Uisce Éireann. We have to do something about Uisce Éireann. It is too slow dealing with applications. Recently I saw a planning application for 26 houses that would have taken 29 weeks to build. Mr. Flannery, the contractor, is great and was ready to build but could not get the connection. That is simply not good enough and we must deal with that. Uisce Éireann should be brought back to the county councils to deal with things in tandem and have everything ready to go when the houses are completed.

Carol Nolan (Offaly, Independent)
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Over-regulated, underdelivered and a catastrophic social disaster that is resulting in the untold misery of thousands of people who are trapped in a bleak housing nightmare. We are witnessing an epidemic of incompetence when it comes to housing. We are witnessing the third Government in a row that has shown no real, dynamic leadership on this issue. We have the third Government in a row that will not speak in an honest way about the impact that massive levels of unsustainable inward migration are having in terms of our housing and accommodation capacity.

This is not just moral and political cowardice; it is betrayal. It is the kind of refusal to describe the known dimensions and contributors to a crisis that is nothing short of infuriating. When demand exceeds supply, it is very logical and very straightforward that we need to have a serious look at inward migration.

We have a generation of children whose birthdays are spent in crowded hotel rooms; a generation who cannot plan their futures and who live on the edge of homelessness. We have tens of thousands of couples who are locked out of the housing market.

In my constituency of Offaly, we are not seeing affordable housing schemes. I have dealt with many people in my constituency offices in Tullamore and Birr. Their income happens to be too high to go on the social housing list but too low to get a mortgage. Those people are caught and they need help. We need affordable housing schemes quickly.

This whole crisis has gone beyond an emergency. It is a housing collapse. What good will our words do when no one seems to be prepared to treat this with the gravity it deserves, take a logical approach and deal with the unsustainable, crazy level of inward migration.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am glad to have the opportunity to talk about housing again tonight. Since I came up here in 2016, we have been talking about it constantly. Every man and woman who has sat here in the Dáil has talked about housing but little has changed.

I want to speak about vacant properties. I spoke about this last year, the year before and recently but the story is the same. There are vacant houses and properties all around the countryside. They are all around Kerry - on streets in villages and towns and in the countryside. They are everywhere but nothing is being done about them. I ask the Government to, for God's sake, reduce the tax so people who have another income and who have a house to rent will not have to pay a 50% tax because it is not worth their while renting the house out if they are being charged 50% or 52% tax. The houses are idle and the Government is getting not getting a bob or a copper of tax from an empty house. Surely to God if the Government took a lesser amount of tax that could be managed.

People are afraid to rent out their houses because if they do, they are afraid they cannot get their houses back when they want them. The RTB has too many powers and it is on the tenants' side. I do not mind if it is being fair but it is not being fair at present. I know tenants are striving to get houses and want to stay in houses but we have to be fair if someone wants their house back. People are afraid so they will not rent out their houses and that is it.

Why not extend the first-time buyers grant to vacant or second-hand houses? They are first-time buyers so why not extend the grant to allow them to buy second-hand houses?

As for planning in rural areas, we have been told here several times about people being denied planning in rural areas because of urban-generated pressure, and yet the farmer's sons and daughters living right next door to them can get it. This is discrimination. I am not saying the farmer's son should not get planning permission - I fought long and hard for that - but the people who have lived next door to them all their lives, have a couple of acres or can get a site from a next door neighbour should be allowed to get planning permission. The Planning Regulator decided that.

I do not know how many times I have heard this but people cannot get planning permission to get access on to a national road even though it is established access. There is a straight mile in Ballagh where people could come out onto both sides the road but they are being denied planning permission there. There were no affordable houses at all in Kerry during the reign of the previous Government. If we think Irish Water can build all the treatment plants and bring water up to scratch without getting funding, it will not happen. Irish Water has no funding stream and if we are being realistic and honest about, it will have to get funding to build.

Yes, the population is doubling or trebling due to inward migration but we are not matching this with houses being built. We are not doing enough to release vacant houses and ensure they come onstream.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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I thank the Deputy.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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We need to do more. We have talked enough and the Government needs to act now, please.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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I now call the Minister, Deputy Browne, to make his concluding statement.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I very much welcome the opportunity to come before the House this evening to speak on housing matters. I take this opportunity to thank all of the Members who contributed this evening to the important, worthwhile and very interesting debate.

First, I echo the contributions of the Ministers of State, Deputies O'Sullivan and Cummins, earlier and reassert the Government's commitment and determination to tackle the challenges in the housing sector. We know these challenges are having a very real impact on people's lives. We understand the urgency and need to ensure sufficient numbers of homes are delivered right throughout this country. We are working tirelessly to address these challenges and to implement policies that will make a very real difference. While there is still so much more to do there has been considerable progress made to date under Housing for All. We have laid a solid foundation for future delivery. The measures introduced under Housing for All have helped to establish a strong platform to scale up housing delivery further in the short term and secure a sustainable level of future supply that will help us to meet the emerging demand.

At the same time, we must acknowledge that housing remains an enormous challenge. The number of new homes coming onstream each year remains far short of where it needs to be. The Government has committed to delivering more than 300,000 new homes between 2025 and 2030, targeting at least 60,000 homes annually by the end of that period. To this end, the programme for Government commits to a new national housing plan to build on the success of Housing for All.

The plan will incorporate pragmatic actions to boost housing activity in the short term, as well as longer term actions that will implement systemic change and help to achieve and sustain the levels of supply that we need for the long term. There is no one single policy approach, decision or silver bullet that will solve the housing challenges we face. We must therefore consider every means available to us. The Ministers of State, Deputies Cummins and O'Sullivan, have set out some of the key changes we have made already in this regard and our plans, including those relating to planning, critical infrastructure and affordable and social housing delivery. I will use my time to focus on a crucial decision that the Government has made today regarding new policy measures to support the rental sector by strengthening tenancy protections and security of tenure. The current system is not optimal for renters or potential new landlords, and changes simply have to be made. The changes that the Government has approved today will provide significantly stronger protection for tenants and a fine balance between the interests of tenants and the need for further private investment in the rental market. In order to boost the supply of new homes available for rent, the Government has today approved modifications to rent controls to come into effect immediately, following the expiration of rent pressure zones. Legislation will be introduced later this year to give effect to these measures.

The key changes approved today by the Government include significant improvement to tenant protections for all new tenancies, further enhancing security of tenure following the introduction of new legislation. Tenancies of unlimited duration are to be enhanced by the introduction of rolling six-year tenancies of minimum duration for smaller landlords with restricted grounds for ending a tenancy. While no-fault evictions for larger landlords will end, landlords with four or more tenancies will not generally be able to end a tenancy where the tenant has complied with their obligations. All landlords will have the right to reset rent where below-market rent is in place at the end of each six-year tenancy unless a no-fault eviction occurs. Landlords will also be able to reset to market rent for new tenancies from 1 March 2026 where previous tenants have left of their own volition. Under the Residential Tenancies Act, it will remain prohibited to set a rent above market rent.

I need to make it absolutely clear that those who have tenancies at the moment will not be subject to the proposed six-year resettings. Ultimately, we aim to improve the situation for renters by increasing the supply of rental accommodation to stimulate investment and keep existing landlords in the market. The resetting of rents to market value will be allowed for new tenancies as part of the reform of rent controls. Given the critical need to attract investment in new apartments for the rental market, the Government will provide that any rent increases for new apartments - those subject to a commencement notice to a planning authority today or going forward - will be restricted to the inflation rate. To mitigate the risk of economic evictions where landlords seek to move tenants out in order that they can charge a higher rent, it is intended that resetting rents will not be allowed for no-fault evictions. The RTB will enforce this by ensuring that any improper conduct by landlords is sanctioned. We will ensure the RTB is properly resourced.

The measures providing greater certainty of protection from no-fault evictions will also be a critical intervention in preventing homelessness. The Government also intends to keep student-specific accommodation under rent control and to develop proposals for specific arrangements for that sector with the Minister, Deputy Lawless, and the Attorney General. We will revert to the Government with these proposals in the near future.

Numerous market expert reports have identified our current rent control system as an impediment to the supply of new private rental accommodation. Increasing the supply of private rental accommodation is crucial in supporting the Government's overall housing targets and addressing affordability in the private rental sector. Today’s measures represent just one avenue of support for new housing delivery. The forthcoming national housing plan will encompass many additional strands of work, including the scaling up of social and affordable homes; address the homelessness challenge; boost the capacity of the construction sector; continue to reduce vacancy; and bring much-needed stock back into use. The new national housing plan will follow the review of the national development plan. Until then, I will continue to engage with Government colleagues, including the Minister for public expenditure, Deputy Jack Chambers, as these reviews take shape over the coming weeks. I will make the case to reaffirm the critical importance of housing as recognised in the previous national development plan review.

I wish to make it very clear that we do not underestimate the scale of the challenge. We recognise that a radical step change is needed in housing supply. That is why we are considering every lever at our disposal. We remain steadfast in our commitment to meet the challenge head on and ensure all those who aspire to independence in the housing market can realise their aspiration.