The Housing Agency report as published had four options. The Government has gone with the option of adapting the existing RPZs because they would expire by the end of the year if nothing was done. This is a strong measure in terms of protection but also in terms of new builds. We need to incentivise future investment in new apartment buildings and housing. I put it to the Deputy that the State is the lead investor at…
TDs / Micheál Martin
Micheál Martin
Taoiseach
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
0
questions asked
Members of the Government answer questions rather than ask them
688,766
words spoken in the chamber
686,628 as a minister, 2,138 as a TD
197
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
From the Dáil chamber only: committee meetings are not in this archive.
Members of the Government answer parliamentary questions rather than ask them, so this page lists none of theirs.
Month by month
Low months are usually recesses, when the Dáil does not sit. The archive runs to 22 October 2026.
Contributions to debates 6,546 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
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| Month | Contributions |
|---|---|
| December 2024 | 11 |
| January 2025 | 6 |
| February 2025 | 438 |
| March 2025 | 518 |
| April 2025 | 317 |
| May 2025 | 426 |
| June 2025 | 424 |
| July 2025 | 344 |
| August 2025 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 146 |
| October 2025 | 375 |
| November 2025 | 291 |
| December 2025 | 281 |
| January 2026 | 326 |
| February 2026 | 529 |
| March 2026 | 229 |
| April 2026 | 385 |
| May 2026 | 474 |
| June 2026 | 425 |
| July 2026 | 181 |
| August 2026 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 198 |
| October 2026 | 222 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 6,426 contributions in the regular slots, such as Leaders' Questions and Priority Questions. Speech from the chair is not counted.
Party, constituency and offices
- constituency Cork South-Central 29 November 2024 to now
- party Fianna Fáil 29 November 2024 to now
- office Taoiseach 23 January 2025 to now
Is anybody seriously suggesting that the State will pony up the €20 billion? Sinn Féin says it will triple social housing, triple this and that without telling us how we are going to get the money. This is very fundamental. We need public sector investment-----
We also need private sector investment and we need to protect tenants. The Minister, Deputy Browne, has done that today with his package. It is extremely disappointing to Sinn Féin because it is not what the party thought it would be.
Sinn Féin never anticipated that we would end no-fault evictions by landlords with four tenancies. It never anticipated that we would make it a national protection framework because last March the party declared to all and sundry that the Government was getting rid of it completely.
That is the language they used. It is the language of "exaggerate and exaggerate, tell untruth after untruth and you know what, people might believe us".
"People might believe us";-----
-----that is what Sinn Féin is about. What I am about is solutions.
I am about solutions.
Sinn Féin is about exploiting the housing problem and crisis to whatever degree possible for its own political advantage.
The Government wants to increase the supply of houses to get to 50,000 per annum.
The proposals of Sinn Féin, via rent bans or whatever the Deputy has said, would actually reduce supply. The Deputies opposite have no ideas and no solutions. That is their problem and the people saw that last time out. They do not have solutions because they do not accept there is any role for the market at all.
That is a fundamental problem in terms of their presentation on this issue.
I stress again that existing tenants' rent will be capped at 2%-----
-----and the rent of new tenants in new supply will be capped at the CPI level. The caps are retained. The framework-----
I did not interrupt the Deputy but this is standard practice for Sinn Féin-----
-----because Sinn Féin is interested in just throwing untruth after untruth across the House and is not prepared to listen to the truth.
You are not the leader yet, Deputy.
You are not the leader.
The Deputies opposite are into performance; they are not into substance.
There are two things. First, Fianna Fáil has been in government for five years, not ten. That is a fact. Second, Deputy Bacik said people were briefing at the end of February. They were not briefing. What happened was that I went public and said there would be reform and that there would have to be change. I made a general statement saying that we would have to attract private sector investment. All of the Opposition…
I did not interrupt the Deputy. He does not own the place. He should have the decency to allow an exchange between me and the Labour Party leader. He has not assumed the status of leader yet and may not for a long time to come.
The fundamental point is that as a result of these packages, we have a national framework of protection. Existing tenants will keep the RPZ at 2%. If we get new builds, which is what we want to do, new tenancies will be capped at the CPI. The protections from no-fault evictions by landlords with four tenancies or more are very significant, and there are other protections and there will be other safeguards. What is em…
That is the reality. If we forget all the noise, the sound and fury and go through it detail by detail, this is a well-balanced package. We are talking about all existing tenants staying at 2% as per the existing RPZs, which the Opposition wanted retained. They are being retained for existing tenants. We do need supply.
Surely Deputy Bacik agrees that we need more supply. We need more apartment building and what is needed for that? Certainty. We need policy certainty for renters and investors. That is what this package provides, because we do need private sector investment in apartment building. The final point I would make is that this is but one of a suite of measures that have been taken and are being taken to significantly chang…
If the Deputy reads the Housing Agency report - and I invite her to do so in its entirety - and looks at the ESRI analysis of the rental market, in reviewing both the domestic and international literature and so on, she will see there has been a negative impact, particularly in 2021, on measures we took on supply into the residential market. That is in the report. There must be a balance. I take it the Deputy wants i…