The housing disaster, as the Minister is well aware, is worsening by the day. Unfortunately, the housing plan he and his Government have developed offers very little hope that they are willing to accept the utter failure of this and successive Governments. This housing plan is no radical reset. It is no radical transformation and, in particular, it offers nothing but words to the thousands who are stuck in homelessness, the 500,000 adults stuck infantilised in their childhood box rooms, the hundreds of thousands of renters, our young people who have emigrated already and the tens of thousands who will emigrate in the coming years, as they see no future here because they cannot afford the crazy rents or house prices. The Minister is about to deliver a double blow to renters this coming March. What is going to happen is his rental changes will squeeze renters who are already struggling to get by. I would argue that he has been deeply misleading in his claims on the new rental measures. He said here in the Dáil last month: We are severely restricting how tenancies can be ended by landlords. That is to ensure there is that security of tenure. I believe that you will see far less frequent notices to quit as a result of this security of tenure being brought in for tenants. This is untrue, is it not? The truth is that the hundreds of thousands of renters who are currently in leases will get no extra security of tenure after March. They will still be as vulnerable to being evicted on a no-fault basis if their landlord decides to sell as they are today. The current renters, the hundreds of thousands of renters, get no extra protection. If they do nothing wrong, they will still be at risk of those evictions. There is nothing to stop landlords continuing to evict most of these renters on current leases into homelessness after March. The Minister has misled the Dáil and the public on what is happening. Second, he has said that by extending the rent pressure zones across the country, he is giving renters certainty in rent, but what he is actually doing from 1 March is that in the case of any new lease signed by a renter, he is effectively removing all the rent controls that are in place. He is removing the intertenancy 2% cap on rent so that when a new tenancy is set after March, it can be set at a market rent in most cases. We have also know that every six years, the rent can be reset to the market rent. Last night, at the housing committee, a number of experts said very clearly that this is effectively deregulating rents and removing rent controls for new tenancies. What the Minister is actually doing in March is leaving existing tenants exposed to the ongoing risk of no-fault evictions and giving them no security of tenure, and he is exposing all new renters to what are effectively uncontrolled market rents every six years on a skyrocketing level. This housing plan is a slush fund for investors and developers and the Minister's new rental measures are a landlord's ticket to continue to exploit renters into the future. In fact, he set it out very clearly in his speech when he said the big changes are "changes... to rent pressure zones to attract private investment back into the... rental sector"; "new planning design standards", and we know what they are, reducing standards; a reduction in VAT, which is a giveaway to developers; and an enhanced corporation tax reduction. The cumulative impact the Minister set out is a potential reduction of up to €160,000 per apartment. That €160,000 per apartment is the gift he is giving to developers and investors per home. Billions of euro in public money are about to be given to investors and what will young people in this country get? Very little, most of them. On the eviction ban, which is much needed, there is a tsunami of evictions going on. Fifteen thousand notices of termination have been issued to renters so far. I have gone through it by area. The Minister can look at it. There were 1,706 notices to quit issued in Cork alone, with 940 in Galway and 412 in Meath. In the Minister's own constituency, 356 notices to quit have been issued to renters so far this year. Where are these people to go? There are not homes for them to go to. All of these renters are individuals and families with their own stories. It is a trauma, as the Minister very well knows, to be evicted from your home. He and previous Ministers and taoisigh have claimed that these are not evictions but notices to quit. They are evictions just as much as the battering rams that battered our homes and battered people and tenant farmers out of their homes in this country during the Famine times. They are as much an eviction as they were and I am shocked that we are not seeing this as a tsunami of human misery, which is what it is. This country has not seen this level of evictions since the Famine times and the Minister is standing over it. In fact, his measures are helping it, as he knows. Why is he not implementing an eviction ban like the one we saw during the Covid years? It was done during Covid as an emergency. How is this not an emergency? Thousands of people are being evicted from their homes, including children. How can they look forward to Christmas now? Where is Santa Claus going to come to? What are their parents telling them? "We do not know where we are going to be." The Minister knows the impact of that on a child's life. He is destroying these children's childhoods and I am not saying that, as the Minister described it last week, as hyperbole. I am saying it because it is true and the Minister knows it is true, too. I cannot get my head around how an Irish Government is willing to stand over tens of thousands of people being evicted into homelessness. It is utterly wrong. On the issue of starter homes, again, it is completely misleading for the Government to say it is going to deliver 15,000 starter homes. First of all, what is a starter home? These are grants. They are not actually affordable homes delivered. Where is the target for directly delivering genuinely affordable homes? There is also nothing in the plan to deal with what the Instagram account Crazy House Prices highlighted, namely, the massive issue of gazumping, bidding wars and the lack of transparency in the house purchasing process. Why will the Minister not make real moves to reduce house prices? Is he unwilling to step up to the vested interests who profit from higher and higher house prices? There is nothing in this plan to tackle that issue. On housing in the Gaeltacht and the Irish language, níl aon tithíocht inacmhainne ar fáil in aon áit ar bith sa tír seo. Tá an cíos ró-ard agus tá na praghsanna tithe ró-ard leis. Tá pleananna agus beartais an Rialtais ag déanamh rudaí níos measa. Is ceart daonna í an tithíocht do gach duine sa tír ach tá na daoine óga ag dul ar imirce. Bíonn ar dhaoine óga bogadh ar ais go dtí tithe a dtuismitheoirí. Tá an ghéarchéim tithíochta sa Ghaeltacht ag cur ár dteanga i mbaol. Is cúis mhór díomá é seo do na pobail Ghaeltachta, a dúirt Conradh na Gaeilge agus BÁNÚ agus iad ag iarraidh réiteach a fháil ar an bhfadhb tithíochta sa Ghaeltacht. Níl aon rud sa phlean náisiúnta tithíochta a thabharfaidh dóchas do na cainteoirí Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht. Caithfidh an Rialtas na cumhachtaí a thabhairt d’Údarás na Gaeltachta chun tithíocht a fhorbairt do phobal labhartha na Gaeilge. There is nothing in the plan that gives hope to the young people who are growing up in the Gaeltacht, who are there, who cannot get a home. Why is the Minister not willing to give Údarás na Gaeltachta the powers and funding to build affordable homes, which is what it could do? The future of our language is in jeopardy because young people cannot find a home in the Gaeltacht. The Minister has the power to do something on this. We in the Social Democrats have put forward many solutions, including the homes for Ireland savings scheme, which could provide billions in additional funding. The Government has ignored it in this plan. We have put forward clear policy alternatives. Instead, the Government is clearly captured by the former Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael lobbyists who are working for the investor funds and the banks. It is doing the bidding of those who want ever higher rents and house prices while our young people are locked out of the basic need of a home, which is a fundamental human right. It is not mentioned once in the housing plan that housing is a human right. Where is the Housing Commission recommendation for a referendum to put a right to housing in the Constitution? It is at the heart of why we are in this mess.

Sentiment score: -0.02