Eoin Ó Broin

Tell the House the facts.

I would be interested in an answer to the question.

Less this year than last, Taoiseach.

Less money for social and affordable housing this year than last.

That is the truth.

State the facts, Taoiseach.

Do not mislead the House.

The ones you meet, and the ones you miss - they are the two types of targets.

At least we told the truth.

We persuaded 400,000 people.

Not on housing it is not.

I will happily do so.

Whenever you want, Taoiseach.

I will do so whenever the Taoiseach wants and in whatever forum.

And yet the Taoiseach is captured by them.

I thank the Labour Party for tabling this comprehensive motion and giving us an opportunity to discuss what is undoubtedly the most important issue facing our constituents today. We are fully supporting the motion. We have some differences of opinion on policy, particularly with respect to the future focus of the Land Development Agency, but we fully support and endorse the spirit of this motion. …

It has never been more difficult to be a renter. Rents are through the roof, and last year almost 20,000 eviction notices were issued to tenants. The single biggest cause of homelessness, as I am sure the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform knows, is evictions from the private rental sector. According to the Residential Tenancies Board, the average cost o…

The Minister is living in cloud-cuckoo-land. For the past number of weeks, there has been intensive lobbying on behalf of Irish Institutional Property, Property Industry Ireland and the Irish Property Owners Association all claiming, wrongly, in my view, that RPZs - as inadequate a protection as they are, they still provide form of protection - are the reason Government did not meet its targets la…

The Government could scrap RPZs tomorrow and allow landlords to reset rents between tenancies and market rent, but not a single new home would be built. How do we know? We know because that was the case a number of years ago. Institutional investors were investing in the market when RPZs were first introduced. It is ECB interest rate rises that have caused the problem. Given that renters are payi…

Will the Minister please confirm that the Government will not do anything that will increase the pressure on hard-pressed renters?

I ask the Minister to be clear to renters, not to me.

I join with other colleagues in thanking Tony and wishing him the very best in the future. I cannot think of any better job to prepare you for being a grandparent than being an usher in Leinster House and herding the bag of cats that is often the TDs in this place. We wish him all the very best. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different resul…

Hear, hear.

Hear, hear.

We did not lie to people.