Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The amendment refers to rent certainty and calls for a doubling of housing provision. As I said earlier, we are unable to spend the funding currently available quick enough. I am unable to accept the amendment. The Government has an issue with linking rent to the consumer price index. We addressed that issue last night. The Government does not believe that proposal would bring the solution that Sinn Féin believes it would bring. We need to have landlords involved. Public housing will not be sufficient to address the problem: we also need private housing and public and private landlords. What is proposed in the Sinn Féin amendment could damage that. As I said, this issue was discussed last night.

I am not interested in engaging in a row with the Senator or in forcing him to push the amendment to a vote. All of these ideas can be teased out in the weeks ahead.