Micheál Martin

Sorry, I did not interrupt once.

What is intriguing is-----

You have attacked and condemned institutional funds-----

Ah come on. I know your-----

Ah you can. Sure you make them up every day for God's sake.

Go on out of that. Are you the leader of the Social Democrats now?

The Deputy opposite has made assertions in his Leaders' Question and I am quite entitled to respond to them. The bottom line here is supply. There is nothing coming from him on supply. The Housing Commission recommended reform of the RPZ scheme. The Social Democrats welcomed the Housing Commission report at the time and attacked Government for the failure to respond to it. I remember it well in th…

-----because of course we have not got rid of RPZs. If anything, as Threshold has stated, we have significantly increased protection for renters while at the same time, in a balanced measure, we have created policy certainty for investment because we desperately needed more supply in the rental market. We clearly do if we are to get to 50,000 per annum. That is the piece the Deputy does not addres…

-----bar an SSIA-type investment scheme which would take a couple of years before you had the requisite funds to invest in capital in housing. The State is already investing capital in housing to the tune of €7 billion plus. I put the question yesterday.

We need about €20 billion in terms of investment, made up of private sector and public sector. Tell me how the Deputy proposes to get private sector investment into the apartment market.

No. That is not true

It is not true.

Sorry, all existing tenants will be capped at 2%.

No-----

All existing tenants, when they stay in the tenancy, will be capped at 2%.

In terms of any new builds or new apartment builds-----

-----after March 2026, when the new legislation comes in, they will be capped-----

Please listen. The Deputy asked a question. All new apartments after March 2026 will be subject to a cap of the CPI, inflation. Then, six years beyond that, the landlord will be able to reset to market-----

Let me finish because Deputy O'Callaghan has done nothing on supply. The combination of that facility for new builds, which we do not have yet, by the way, and there are no tenants in them-----

-----and the CPI gives the basis upon which we can bring investment back into the market to get more apartments built because supply, ultimately, is the way to moderate rents.

We are not going to do it by rent freezes or by this, that or the other that the Deputy's party has been proposing for the past two to three years, which will only conspire-----

-----to reduce and suppress supply and allow rents to go up even higher.

Could the Deputy repeat those figures, please?

I thank the Deputy for raising what is a very real issue for many people in society, in terms of increased antisocial behaviour. We need both approaches. We need consistently and constantly to deal with the source and the evolution of this, including in school programmes. A lot is being done in schools actually. I visit schools a lot. I was in one recently where there was tremendous inclusivity. T…

The line between community engagement and moving into the youth juvenile space is a difficult enough one to crack.