Micheál Martin

It begs the question, though, as to how Deputy McDonald could, to date, oppose up to 1,700 housing units in her own area, in Clonliffe College, and likewise in Cabra. If the Deputy is saying it is an emergency across the country, how come it is not an emergency in her constituency or in the areas where her party objects?

She simply cannot have it both ways. This duplicitous approach to housing has to end. What we need from Deputy McDonald are concrete solutions on how we increase supply so that we can get a situation where we can build 50,000 units a year.

The Deputy's party's policies-----

I am not talking about Deputy McDonald personally; I am talking about the Sinn Féin Party.

The Sinn Féin Party's policy objective over time is to reduce the size of the private rental sector.

If Deputy McDonald looks at her policies in recent years, they have been designed to suppress supply in the private rental market. We have built more social houses in the past four years than have been built since 1975.

Some 36,500 new social houses were built.

In 2023, 12,000 social houses were delivered and 10,500 were delivered last year.

These are record numbers of social housing delivery.

Deputy McDonald says her party can go to 30,000 overnight. She has not outlined how she would get to 30,000 overnight.

The measures and reforms proposed last week will cap rent for all existing tenants to 2%. Deputy McDonald knows that.

Rent increases for any new tenancies, post-2026, will be linked to the CPI.

I did not say that.

It was last week that I said that.

I will first say to the Deputy that since the Government came in a number of months ago in January, we have approved an extra €700 million in respect of projects and programmes for social and affordable housing. We passed the national planning framework, which will enable local authorities to zone far more land for house construction. We brought forward proposals on legislation to extend and renew…

Very significantly providing protections for renters which Deputy Bacik is clearly ignoring in her commentary. While at the same time, in terms of new investment and new units, which we do need, there has to be a clear policy certainty and stability in the market so that people can invest. After 2026, linking new units to the consumer price index, CPI, and a right to reset after six years is the c…

She will not support anything that in any way she perceives to be injurious to her electoral base or might cost her a few votes. That is the prism through which she is looking at our housing crisis. I recall that she is the person that said she will build 100,000 per year-----

-----through some new-fangled national State building agency, the details of which are few and far between. The Deputy has not produced solutions. We have built more than 30,000 per annum over the past number of years.

In the first quarter of this year, housing completions were close to 6,000. The actual number was 5,938. That is the highest since the record in 2011, bar the spike after Covid-19. There is a lot of delivery happening. The land market activity on residential zoned areas is up. There is a great deal of activity there. We have to keep going and get the job done.

I have no difficulty in taking responsibility. We are taking decisions.

The Deputy is criticising decisions. She said, "We are in opposition". The Labour Party could have been in government-----

-----but it did not have the courage.

You and many in your party did not have the courage. Why? It was because-----

Look, it hurts. I have the floor.

I accept what I just said hurts the party. I note Deputy Kelly is not here. To be fair to him, he wanted to go into government, but the others did not-----