I thank Sinn Féin for this very important motion. I was against the rule the Minister brought in a number of months ago from 1 March that people would have to rent their houses out for six years. The news that was coming drove many people out of the market. Since some time early last year, many people have come to me who were after getting their notice to quit and their hearts were broken because they did not know where to go. It was hurtful. That was the reason. I voted against that because I feel very strongly about democratic rights. I always believed that if someone owns a house, if they bought it, if they got it or if their name was on the deed of it, they were entitled to do what they wanted to do with it. There is a pile of vacant houses there and I asked the Government to incentivise people to rent them rather than forcing people to do things. Incentivisation was the way to go. The Minister realises that the landlord pays 50% tax on the rent he gets. If people are renting out their houses for less than €1,000 a month, they are paying half of that back in tax. It becomes not worth their while to rent the house in situations like that. So much could be done to incentivise people to rent their houses and there are so many houses vacant. I will say it again because I do not know whether the Minister and the Minister of State are listening to me or not. If they do not, it is their own business. They do not seem to listen to this story anyway because I have asked many times before and they did not. Then there is the situation where people would build a house for themselves if they could get planning permission for it. In Kerry, many people will not get planning permission because of a rule that the planning authority goes by, this urban-generated rule that prevents them getting planning permission to put a roof over their heads. They are asking for no funding, no nothing only permission to be allowed build their houses. That is another thing that is happening. All along our national routes, the secondary routes and the national primary routes, people cannot access if they are coming out of even a public right of way that is not in the charge of Kerry County Council. They are not allowed to come out. We have asked about this several times. The former Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, put that rule in place in 2012 when he was Minister. We have asked the Government several times to rescind it and change it. We hope that it will do so with the new planning rules but I am worried because when the Government is going to do something, there are rumours that it is going to happen. These people are asking for nothing from the Government only permission to be allowed to build a house for themselves. They have their own funding and they will do it themselves. They will borrow and they are prepared to do whatever they need to do but we have been giving them no hearing for the past number of years. It is a very simple thing. To go back to renting houses, it was no bother in the world for the Government of the day to pay €600 or €800 to Ukrainians who came here. There was no problem with this. The Government had no problem paying for this but it will not do the same for its own here. I am not saying they should not have got it but the Irish people should get the very same as whoever comes here from wherever they are coming and they deserve that. In a democracy, this is what we would expect. I ask the Government to look at something like this to see if it would release some of the vacant houses all across our towns, villages and in the countryside. The Government is doing nothing to incentivise people to get into the rental market. I do not think the Minister and the Minister of State are listening but that is the way with them. They did not listen before and they will pay a higher price if they do not listen again.

Sentiment score: -0.03

On a point of order, I want to register a complaint about the Minister and the Minister of State. We spoke for eight or nine minutes and they did not listen to one word that we said.

Sentiment score: -0.11

They were talking. They are ignorant and arrogant and they will not listen but they will get their answer when they go to the doors.

Sentiment score: -0.20