Micheál Martin

I always remember the Deputy's intervention during the energy crisis. It was the Liz Truss intervention.

Sinn Féin copied and pasted the Liz Truss intervention but thanks be to God we did not accept its proposals-----

-----because look at what happened to Prime Minister Truss and to the markets and everything else in the UK at the time.

The Government has responded to the Housing Commission. It has been asserted in public discourse that the Government ignored the Housing Commission in respect of the rental market.

I would argue that the Opposition has ignored the Housing Commission on rents because it clearly pointed to a reform of the rent pressure zones, RPZs. It said they were not fit for purpose and should not be allowed to continue. Once the Government and Minister came forward with reforms of the RPZs, balancing protections by making it full national coverage and other measures, there was a chorus of …

-----and a pretence that the Government had not looked at the Housing Commission's report at all. That happened. The bottom line is supply.

If you continue with eviction bans, rent freezes and all of that, you will depress suply. There is no doubt in my mind about that. If we keep doing judicial reviews, even against guidelines and regulations - the Deputy should not nod; these are the facts - that is paralysing the system. We want to get apartments built - different types, sizes and guidelines. The first resort of public representati…

That is the bottom line. There is this refusal to acknowledge progress but we need to do much more than that. That is why the Government is doing everything it possibly can to get more houses built, get more apartments built -----

----- both on the social housing level, affordable housing and generally across the situation and we will continue to do that.

We brought in the rent credit, which is quite significant in itself and has been in terms of its impact.

I have. The Deputy has asked a range of questions, to be fair. On the homelessness question, the Minister is taking a different approach to the eviction ban because we believe the eviction ban will damage supply but what we can do in terms of homeless is have a very specific programme and an allocated resource. The Minister received €50 million earlier this year in respect of taking families out o…

The Minister is committed to doing that and he received additional resources in the budget to double down on that and to have a particularly focused programme in respect of children in homelessness. As the Deputy knows, people enter and exit homelessness on an ongoing basis.

The issue for us is to get families and children out of homelessness as quickly as possible. It is much more complex than has been articulated by the Deputy and others in this House.

Homelessness is much more complex today, and the Deputy knows that.

That is why there will also be legislative changes to some aspects of what is going on as well

First of all, I would reject completely the analysis of the Deputy. We have been listening to a lot of empty rhetoric on the side of the Opposition in respect of housing. As I said earlier, housing supply is not where we want it to be but it is significantly way up on where it was five years ago on an annual basis. In the second quarter of this year, there were very high figures - the highest sinc…

Of course we did not wait for the housing action plan. We have brought in a range of measures since the beginning of the year, most of which the Deputy has opposed, as she opposed most measures in respect of housing from the planning Act right through. This budget allocates significantly more resources again on very substantial State investment in housing - a 20% increase in overall funding to ho…

It is the State is investing across abroad sweep of housing policies. What has to happen is that the State funding has to be balanced by private sector finance. I know the Deputy hates that. The Deputy has an instinctive ideological opposition to that, which I disagree with. Until we get a significant financial investment from the private sector in housing, we are not going to get to 50,000.

The State cannot sustainably finance on its own the building of 50,000 to 60,000 houses for the next decade, so strategy and policy must reflect the continuance of unprecedented Government investment but complemented and supplemented by private sector investment. That is the clear strategic approach of Government. It is not panic mode or anything of the sort but it is relentless and it is focused…

We want to build infrastructure, water and grid, which are central to housing. That is what enables us to build more houses.

Water, grid and public transport are the fundamental pieces of infrastructure that make house building possible.

A total of €4 billion alone in current expenditure is being provided for housing for 2026. This is an increase of €600 million. Key elements of this will go to homeless services-----

-----to ensure that local authorities can provide emergency accommodation. Well, it has to be done. For God's sake, we have to provide it.

The Deputy would be very first guy condemning us if we did not.

There are homeless prevention measures, tenancy sustainment measures and so on, and enabling people to exit emergency accommodation as quickly as possible. We will fund over 5,000 new homes under the social housing current expenditure programme. We continue to support over 40,000 existing homes under the scheme. There is €470 million to support an additional 7,000 new tenancies. At present there a…