I reject completely the Deputy's assertions. She is guilty of severely exaggerated commentary on the reform of the RPZs announced last week. The bottom line is that as a result of those reforms, renters will have stronger protections than ever before. All renters will be covered by RPZs. It will be interesting that the first item on the agenda of our RPZ reforms will be something that Sinn Féin will have no choice but to support. Despite all the bluster and hype, Sinn Féin TDs will go into the voting lobbies to support the very first measure of the reform package we announced last week. It is interesting that Dr. Michael Byrne, who is a lecturer in political economy at the school of social policy, social work and social justice in UCD and who works with Threshold, has said the security of tenure measures announced last week are really significant. He said that, arguably, they are among the most robust protection for tenants in Europe. I am not saying that and no one on the Government side is saying it; it is someone has been involved in the area for quite some time. That is the case, because we have an effective end to no-fault evictions, where the landlord has four or more tenancies. New tenancies will now be guaranteed for six years. Tenancies with smaller landlords generally have a minimum duration of six years. With limited circumstances - more limited than before - smaller tenancies can end. I look forward to Sinn Féin either opposing those measures or surely having to vote for the additional protections we are going to bring forward. What will happen is that the contrast between the Sinn Féin hype and hyperbole, and what will happen when we put these legislative pieces through the House, will be a yawning gap. Surely Sinn Féin will have to vote for these additional protections. The more fundamental point is that Sinn Féin has proposed a rent freeze for three years, which would damage supply. Overall, Sinn Féin's policy objective is to reduce the rental market. The party has an ideological hostility to the rental market and to the private market, more generally, in terms of construction. A freeze on rent increases would mean that no one could claim for maintenance costs or even the cost of inflation. Who is going to invest in new units with Sinn Féin's policy, because its solutions are simply wrong? Its whole proposition is incoherent. The only way we can deal with the housing crisis is to dramatically increase supply. We have increased it from 2020 onwards to about 30,000 thousand units per year. Up to then, we had 20,000 per year. We want to get to 50,000 per year. We need public investment, which we are doing, as the State is the largest investor in the housing market at the moment, and we need substantial private sector investment. Sinn Féin has to acknowledge that. I know members of Sinn Féin have been out protesting and saying this is an emergency and so on. I agree; it is a crisis that we need to deal with as a society.
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It begs the question, though, as to how Deputy McDonald could, to date, oppose up to 1,700 housing units in her own area, in Clonliffe College, and likewise in Cabra. If the Deputy is saying it is an emergency across the country, how come it is not an emergency in her constituency or in the areas where her party objects?
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She simply cannot have it both ways. This duplicitous approach to housing has to end. What we need from Deputy McDonald are concrete solutions on how we increase supply so that we can get a situation where we can build 50,000 units a year.
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The Deputy's party's policies-----
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I am not talking about Deputy McDonald personally; I am talking about the Sinn Féin Party.
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The Sinn Féin Party's policy objective over time is to reduce the size of the private rental sector.
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If Deputy McDonald looks at her policies in recent years, they have been designed to suppress supply in the private rental market. We have built more social houses in the past four years than have been built since 1975.
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Some 36,500 new social houses were built.
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In 2023, 12,000 social houses were delivered and 10,500 were delivered last year.
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These are record numbers of social housing delivery.
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Deputy McDonald says her party can go to 30,000 overnight. She has not outlined how she would get to 30,000 overnight.
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The measures and reforms proposed last week will cap rent for all existing tenants to 2%. Deputy McDonald knows that.
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Rent increases for any new tenancies, post-2026, will be linked to the CPI.
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I did not say that.
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It was last week that I said that.
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I will first say to the Deputy that since the Government came in a number of months ago in January, we have approved an extra €700 million in respect of projects and programmes for social and affordable housing. We passed the national planning framework, which will enable local authorities to zone far more land for house construction. We brought forward proposals on legislation to extend and renew planning permissions in order to give continuity and ensure that those planning permissions can be realised. We brought in the RPZ reforms that were announced last week, which the Deputy is now attacking. In the same breath and the same comment, the Deputy talks about a radical reset recommended by the Housing Commission. This was recommended by the Housing Commission - a reform of the RPZs. Which is it? What aspects of the Housing Commission is the Deputy saying we should and should not implement? The Housing Agency was asked to do a review of RPZs following on from the Housing Commission. It did its review. We have adopted one of the proposed areas - as in reforming the RPZs, not getting rid of them as the Deputy said I would. We are not doing anything like that; we are strengthening protections for renters.
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Very significantly providing protections for renters which Deputy Bacik is clearly ignoring in her commentary. While at the same time, in terms of new investment and new units, which we do need, there has to be a clear policy certainty and stability in the market so that people can invest. After 2026, linking new units to the consumer price index, CPI, and a right to reset after six years is the crucial piece that will allow inward investment in to get supply up. If we do not get supply up, then the rate at which prices will moderate will be slower. It is as simple as that. The Deputy will not bite the bullet. She will not make the difficult decision. She is in opposition. I accept that.
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She will not support anything that in any way she perceives to be injurious to her electoral base or might cost her a few votes. That is the prism through which she is looking at our housing crisis. I recall that she is the person that said she will build 100,000 per year-----
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-----through some new-fangled national State building agency, the details of which are few and far between. The Deputy has not produced solutions. We have built more than 30,000 per annum over the past number of years.
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In the first quarter of this year, housing completions were close to 6,000. The actual number was 5,938. That is the highest since the record in 2011, bar the spike after Covid-19. There is a lot of delivery happening. The land market activity on residential zoned areas is up. There is a great deal of activity there. We have to keep going and get the job done.
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I have no difficulty in taking responsibility. We are taking decisions.
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The Deputy is criticising decisions. She said, "We are in opposition". The Labour Party could have been in government-----
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-----but it did not have the courage.
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You and many in your party did not have the courage. Why? It was because-----
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Look, it hurts. I have the floor.
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I accept what I just said hurts the party. I note Deputy Kelly is not here. To be fair to him, he wanted to go into government, but the others did not-----
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-----and the reason they did not want to go into government was that they are afraid of the people alongside them.
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You were afraid to jump in case they would not jump and vice versa.
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I have no difficulty in taking responsibility, but maybe it is time Deputy Bacik took some responsibility and fleshed out her details.
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But they have all joined forces now.
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I reject the use of language like "chaotic" and all that. It is a good sound bite, but that is all it is - a sound bite with no substance behind it. The bottom line is that the reforms announced last week will enhance protections. The Deputy says it will drive up rents. Every existing tenant will have their rent capped at 2%. There will be no increase. Does the Deputy acknowledge that? Not one of them has acknowledged that. No existing tenant will have their rent increased. We want new units built. Very few apartments have been built. We have a problem there and we need to attract private sector investment in to get the supply up. Any new tenancies post March 2026 or any new units built will be capped at the CPI. Tenure has increased dramatically in terms of protections - no-fault evictions essentially for almost all tenants, but particularly for those with four or more. These are significant protections over and above what was there before the reforms announced last week and yet they get the decried and attacked. Basically, it is as if rhetoric will win out in the end from the Opposition's perspective.
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There is no real detailed teasing out of issues or discussion of issues in here on Leaders' Questions - it is get up and have a go. The Deputy mentioned the proposal around the SSIA, a savings and investments scheme. She must acknowledge that it would take some years before the necessary funds would be available. The State itself is investing hugely with about €6.8 billion in capital on housing in 2025 and that will probably rise. That is not counting the State investment on the current side with HAP and so on. The State investment in housing right now is well over €7 billion. We have the fourth largest construction activity in a European Union of 27 member states. There is a lot of activity in Ireland but we have had a growing economy in the last decade and very significant population growth. We have an issue in meeting the housing demand. That is a crisis for the younger generation. We acknowledge that. I am very focused and the Government is very determined and very focused. We are taking decisions every week on housing and will continue to take more and more decisions. The LDA has made an impact. The Government from 2020 to 2025 gave it power and resources, and legislation. We are now giving additional roles to the LDA as it has built up capacity. However, we are not hanging around for CPIs - CPIs can take time. We need to hit the ground running in respect of any additional reforms that we have. We are absolutely determined to get to 50,000 per annum. Rent freezes will not do that.
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The Government's focus has been on housing supply. The Government has dramatically increased the level of public sector investment. We had record numbers of social houses built in the last four years. One would need to go as far back as 1975 to get an equivalent level of social housing built.
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We have built up to 36,000 social houses since.
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We have also supported affordability.
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For example, the help to buy scheme and the first home scheme are significant supports for first-time buyers. I know the main Opposition party, to which the other parties have all aligned, wanted to get rid of the first home scheme-----
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-----and wanted to get rid of the help to buy scheme. It wants to get rid of those two schemes for first-time buyers. In addition, we have produced very significant grant support for people who want to renovate and live in a derelict house, for example, or in a vacant house. This is not investor led. This is people-led investment and support that we as a Government have introduced and will continue to support the younger people who are seeking to get a house, either to buy or to rent, at an affordable price.
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First of all, "Yes" is the answer. We will. Utilities need certainty. Utilities can be a great enabler of both housing and infrastructure. The national development plan will reflect the prioritisation of water in particular, expansion of the grid and public transport along with road infrastructure. The Minister, Deputy Chambers, has established an infrastructure division within the Department of public expenditure and a team of sectoral experts has been seconded from key agencies to the division. That division is already focusing on the electricity, water and transport sectors. It is focused initially on the preparation of an evidence-based, systematic assessment of the barriers impeding timely infrastructure development. It is engaging with key stakeholders to identify those critical barriers. It has begun a public consultation, which was launched on 6 June. A stakeholder engagement event is scheduled for 18 June in Athlone. It will also examine what reforms have been successfully introduced in other jurisdictions that may be applicable in Ireland. The Minister, Deputy Chambers, will provide a report to the Government by the end of July on what have been identified as the most significant barriers slowing infrastructural development, and we will work on those. I will say this, though, in terms of judicial reviews. I believe all planning should as far as humanly possible be decided on in the layers of planning institutions we have established - local authorities and An Bord Pleanála. Ultimately, planning should not be decided in the court but people are applying to the courts the length and breadth of the country. Governments cannot abolish the law. In the Planning Act, it was interesting. We did try to streamline the law and the whole area around judicial review. There was a lot of opposition in the House to it. People wanted to reduce the impact of the Planning Act that we took three years to get through this House. People were adamant that rights came before anything else in some quarters, in other words, the eternal question of the common good versus personal, individual rights. Given the population growth in this country, given the housing need in this country, I think the overall common good should triumph, given the situation we find ourselves in. We have very good examples, by the way, of very good infrastructure that has been delivered on time and on budget, but we never hear of those projects because they are not newsworthy, really. When they get done on time and in budget, that is the end of it. No one really wants to talk about them. It is the ones that are over budget and behind time. Take the Shannon water scheme. The Government has approved that but there will be opposition. Public representatives have said they are going to oppose it. It is essential for the midlands, it is essential for Dublin, that we get that project through but there will be opposition.
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Absolutely, funding and reform. The funding will be made available through the national development plan. The issue will be whether we can get societal buy-in to a lot of the required infrastructure. That is the big issue. The Deputy mentioned the ring road in Galway. His former colleagues in the Green Party were very much against roads. That is just a fact; that is their political view. Even in government, it was problematic in terms of some road projects. Look at the Macroom-Ballyvourney bypass. The impact that has had environmentally and on road safety has been extraordinary in terms of the impact on the communities living in the various towns along there - it has been quite extraordinary - as well as improving connectivity and road safety.
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I think we have had too simplistic a debate on roads from those on the environmental pillar who see roads as just a total non-starter. We need better debate around these issues because they can also have beneficial environmental impacts.
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