What an utter shambles. In my entire time in Dáil Éireann, I have never witnessed a more haphazard, ramshackle, back-of-the-envelope process for putting in place widespread reforms that are going to impact tens of thousands of people. While I understand Ministers and Ministers of State have to come here and defend this farce, privately they must be absolutely reeling. The credibility of the Government's housing policy has once again been exposed as an absolute sham. Only five months into the job, the Minister's own credibility has been badly damaged. This is not just my view. Listen to what the industry, media and commentators are saying. In fact, some of the Minister's own backbenchers were being quoted in the newspapers last weekend. I have to say this is an incredibly sorry tale. With the greatest of respect to the Minister of State, Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan, speaking in defence of the hard-pressed renters in County Cork, the failure of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael since 2020 to do anything to protect the renters he represents has seen their rents increase by a staggering 60%. We are now looking at new rents in the Minister of State's county being €7,270 more expensive per year now than when the parties formed a coalition. I do not think renters in County Cork, especially outside the RPZs, will be thanking them for their inaction over all these years. As each day has unfolded since the leaks began the weekend before last, we have seen confusion, consternation, contradiction and widespread fear and anxiety among the tens of thousands of renters across this State. When the Minister launched the policy last Tuesday, it was clear from the words coming out of his mouth and in print in his press release that the ability of landlords to reset rents to the full market level would apply to all tenancies from March 2026. When he was exposed on the floor of the Dáil the Taoiseach was left reeling from the Minister's incompetence and only then did he change the plan. Likewise, there was no mention of students when he launched these proposals on 10 June. There was no mention from his officials during the technical briefing given to the media. Again, it was only when it was highlighted that students would be some of the first and worst hit that the Minister scrambled around to fix the issue. He cannot even agree with his own party colleague, the Minister, Deputy James Lawless, on what level of additional protections may or may not be given to students. This shows that the Minister does not understand the legislation. He signed up to a package without any consideration of its impact on the vast majority of renters, leaving his backbenchers to defend what is utterly indefensible. Let us look at the package as a whole because today's Bill, which I will come to shortly, is only part of a wider package. Let us call it by its name. It is the Fianna Fáil rent hike Bill. This is Micheál Martin, who initiated this process and pulls the strings of his Minister, jacking up the rents for tens of thousands of hard-pressed renters from March 2026 onwards. What is being done is not constructing a careful balance between landlords and tenants or introducing a comprehensive, State-wide rent protection regime. Rather, the rent pressure zone legislation introduced in 2016 is being dismantled over time. These were protections that were incredibly weak in the first place. Nobody will believe any attempt to present this as anything else. Universally, almost all the coverage, from journalists, commentators and industry, has accepted the simple, central fact of this proposal, which is that it is going to result in rent increases, in many cases at a more accelerated rate than would have otherwise happened. It appears that Fianna Fáil's solution to rising rents is to keep those rents rising. Worse than that, in respect of new rental stock, from the start of next year, the Government is going to peg annual rent reviews to inflation, which will drag overall new rents up even faster. Market rent resets for new tenants in first-time tenancies will accelerate at an even greater rate. This is being done on the promise of increased institutional investment in high-end, high-density, private rental sector investment. That investment will not be delivered in Cork, and certainly not in west Cork. It will not be delivered in the constituencies of the Minister or the Minister of State.

Sentiment score: -0.03

In the best-case scenario, all this will do is create a modest increase in the levels of institutional investment in high-end, high-cost, private rental cost developments in the Google quarter, Sandyford and other high-income areas. Everyone else will be left behind. The industry reaction to this has ranged from the lukewarm to the hostile because the Government could not even get that bit right. The consequence is that renters everywhere will pay a cost. They will not get the supply dividend the Minister is alleging.

Sentiment score: 0.01

I have heard the Minister and the Taoiseach say over and over again that they are going to protect all existing renters. Some 80% of current renters are in tenancies of six years or less. Long-term renters are in the minority. That is becoming increasingly evident through the constant levels of eviction notices. The idea that somehow existing renters are protected is simply not true. While there is no doubt the security of tenure changes will benefit a small number of renters, the Government is creating an even more complex set of arrangements that are more difficult to understand and more readily available for rogue landlords to exploit or semi-professional, accidental landlords to misunderstand and make mistakes. That will lead to more disputes at the Residential Tenancies Board, which cannot even handle the current level of cases it has. As a consequence, more problems will arise. To make matters worse, what landlord in possession of a vacant property between now and next March is going to re-let it? This will suck out those properties, which will constrain supply even further and make matters worse in the short term. With regard to the legislation, we have always argued that rent regulation should apply to all renters of all types in all counties. Extending the RPZs should have been done at the start. The Minister came into the Chamber and said that he is introducing this to protect renters when it was never even his intention to do so. It was always clear-----

Sentiment score: -0.18

The Minister should go and talk to the journalists who raised these questions with his officials at the technical briefing. This was going to be in the legislation later this year. While the RPZs should have always applied to all renters back in 2016, no one should be facing rent increases right now. We need rent increases banned for an emergency period of three years for those renters paying the highest rents in the history of the State. The amendments I will table later, which we will push to a vote, would do exactly that. They would protect renters who are already paying rip-off rents from any form of rent increase at all. That is what a party which wants to protect renters should be doing, along with putting in place a credible plan to increase investment in the delivery of social, affordable and private for-purchase homes. The Minister also needs to clarify the impact of this legislation on people currently engaging in short-term letting, in many cases in rural countryside areas. This practice is valuable to the tourism economy. They understood that this matter was going to be dealt with by the process of the register legislation and the accompanying planning regulations from the Minister, Deputy Burke. The day after this Bill comes into effect, however, the short-term letting regulations introduced by the former Minister, Eoghan Murphy, will apply across the board. The Minister owes those people an explanation as to the implications of this and what his instructions to local authorities will be. To be clear, Sinn Féin is not opposing this Bill. What is in front of us will not protect renters because in a short matter of months, the Minister will bring forward legislation that will rip the heart out of the rent pressure zones. Over a period of time, many of the people the Government is promising protection today will eventually have their rents set to full market rent. All of the affordability gains of the near decade of rent pressure zones will be wiped away. That is what the Government is doing. It is part of a much bigger package, one that is an assault on renters at a time when the Government is also considering reducing design standards. Not only will renters be paying more rent, they will be living in smaller, darker and less adequate apartments in the future. The big consequence of Fianna Fáil's rent-hike Bill is that renters will be the losers once again. This Bill means higher rents with no guarantee of increased supply. What is clear today, after two weeks of chaos and confusion, is that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's housing policy has been exposed for the disaster that it is. The Minister's handling of this has been greatly damaged. That is why, in the context of the protest yesterday, the protest in Cork on Saturday and in the weeks ahead, thousands of people will march in opposition to what the Government is doing to renters. It is ripping them off and forcing them to pay higher rents. We will not stand for it.

Sentiment score: -0.04