As we know, we live in a housing crisis. That is a supply crisis. We have a rental crisis which is a supply crisis, and we have a homelessness crisis which is a supply crisis. What we are endeavouring to do here is strengthen tenants' rights, which we are doing through security of tenure, which means tenants will know how long they can stay in a property, while driving investment. I say to Deputy Hearne that investment is not a dirty word. We need private investment.
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You stand up here and you are constantly attacking anything to do with investment. You seem to believe that bandying around the words "landlord" or "investment" is enough mud to keep throwing.
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Nobody in this House has a monopoly on empathy.
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We are trying to solve what is a housing crisis driven by a supply crisis. What have we heard from the Opposition? Have we heard a single solution? The Deputies' only proposal - Deputy Boyd Barrett referred to misery - is to freeze the housing crisis into a permanent misery. That is what they are looking to do.
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What they want to do is keep the current situation in perpetuity. What I need to do to solve the housing crisis is not simply about protecting existing renters. It is about all those people at home who need somewhere to live.
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That means driving the supply of homes in this country. We have delivered more social homes in 2024 than in any year since the 1970s. We have delivered record affordable homes and last year we delivered over 36,000 new homes, the highest since 2011. We have to drive the supply and that needs investment. The Government is investing the largest amount of money in the history of the State into housing delivery. One in every three euro of the new national development plan capital funding is going into delivering housing. That is record funding. The State cannot deliver every housing solution. We need a significant amount of private investment. While we are doing this, we also have to protect renters. For the first time in the history of the State, we are introducing security of tenure. That is what the Deputies are going to vote against.
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For those who are currently in a rental situation, their position does not change - for 240,000 renters it does not change.
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On the one hand, you want it to stay the same, on the other hand you want change.
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In a single sentence earlier, Deputy Hearne said that the landlords are licking their lips, and that they are also getting out. At least when Deputy Ó Broin makes a hypocritical statement he sandwiches it to try to hide it a little bit. You just actually said it in a single sentence. It makes no sense.
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It is just word spaghetti in the hope that something lands or when you leave the Chamber you have got 20 seconds for your social media.
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What we have to do is provide housing solutions. We have to drive the supply of homes if we are going to solve the housing crisis in this country.
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That is what we are doing, while also providing, as I say, for the first time in the history of the State, security of tenure. That is the crucial part we are doing here. Deputies do not have to like everything in the legislation but they are going to vote against security of tenure. That is what they are going to do.
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For the first time people will have the confidence of knowing, in the case of large landlords, effectively they can stay there forever. They know they will be able to do it.
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There are certain exceptions for smaller landlords but they still know they will have at least six years. We know the greatest driver of homelessness is notices to quit. We are going to give security of tenure-----
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-----so people can put down roots, so people can feel safe and know what their personal situation is. I think it is quite cynical actually, the Opposition here. The Deputies are united in cynicism against this legislation. We cannot do nothing. If we do what the Opposition wants to do, which is freeze rents and have an eviction ban, it does not even retain the status quo, it is actually going to get worse because our population is increasing by about 70,000 to 90,000 people a year. If we do not increase supply at all-----
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-----if we freeze the situation as the Opposition wants to do, that is the situation. We are delivering record affordable housing. In 2024 we delivered the largest amount of social housing since the 1970s and we will have the 2025 social housing numbers quite soon as well. That is what we are doing here. We want to solve the housing crisis. That is what we are working towards. I get what the Opposition is doing. It is playing on the fears and emotions of those people who are in a rental situation. We do not have that luxury. It is actually quite cynical to do it. What we are doing is making the tough, difficult decisions-----
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-----to drive the supply of the homes that we need. We have heard nothing from the Opposition about how it would actually drive the supply of homes in this country. A number of comments were made. Deputy Stanley asked why are rents going up in Laois. Again, it is because of the lack of supply. The only way that people in Laois will get homes to live in is by the supply of homes being increased. That is absolutely crucial right across the country. Record numbers of social houses have been delivered since the 1970s. The status quo only makes things worse. Why are we doing this? It is actually not being done in a hurry. We announced what we would be doing here today last summer. The Bill underwent pre-legislative scrutiny. There has been loads of time to analyse it. We are having a five-hour debate on it here tonight. There was ample time for people to assess the Bill and make-----
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-----a consideration as to when we do it.
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The one thing that is guaranteed is that the rents are not going to come down if the Deputy's party continues with its policies..
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We know that. That is exactly the point. You have no policies.
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All you have are slogans.
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A Freudian slip from the Deputy there. We are driving on and addressing the housing crisis. We want to solve it in order that we can get people into the homes they need. That is why we are driving on with building social homes, affordable homes and private homes. It is also why we are bringing in stronger protections for tenants. In relation to the amendments, Standing Order 204 states the following: Twelve months following the enactment of a Bill, save in the case of the Finance Bill and the Appropriation Bill, the member of the Government or Minister of State who is officially responsible for implementation of the Act shall provide a report which shall review the functioning of the Act and which shall be laid in the Parliamentary Library. This means that automatic reviews of legislation always happen. We have increased the resources of the RTB by 70% this year alone. The board will support tenants and ensure that their rights are protected. CSO figures show that there was a 38% increase in apartments in 2025 compared with 2024. Our policies are working; we are going to drive supply and that is how we will solve the housing crisis, the rental crisis and the homelessness crisis. Simply putting the crisis that exists into a permanent freeze will not solve it. Peddling misery will not solve it either.
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That is not what that says.
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Market rents can go down-----
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The Deputy should not be misleading. Markets can go up as well as down.
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I thank the Deputies. We have been here for nearly three and a half hours debating the first amendment, but that is because there has hardly been a single discussion from the Opposition on the amendment. It has been referred to but most of the debate has not been on the amendment itself. Let us be honest: if the debate was simply on the amendment, we would have moved on a long time ago. I want to address a number of issues. Deputy Ó Broin is using the RTB data for scaremongering. Those were his projections from that data. I completely reject his conclusion. I do not know what his conclusions or projections are based on but they are certainly based on no change. We are going to drive supply. Everything I have done since becoming Minister for housing has been to address the housing crisis in this country, and I have always acknowledged there is a housing crisis in this country. Everything I have done is to try to address the housing crisis to get people into the homes they need, whether they are social, affordable or private, for rent or ownership, or for people in towns, villages, rural Ireland or inner cities. We have to solve that housing crisis, which is what everything I am doing is doing. How do we do that? One key to it is actually driving supply - yes, the right supply - but we have to drive the supply of homes. Another rent freeze and eviction ban are not going to drive any supply whatsoever. What they do is crystallise the lack of hope for everybody trying to get somewhere to live because they are never going to get a home to live in. We have to drive supply. The situation at the moment is very temporary. We are now moving to permanent rent regulation in this country. We are giving certainty to tenants, landlords, investors and the State by bringing in a resolution to the rental situation in this country into the future. That is really important. The security of tenure element has been ignored. These reforms will ensure that, for the first time, tenants will have security of tenure. They will have a minimum of six years. With a large landlord, they will have a tenancy for as long as they need it, which is crucial. That is not the case right now. They can be confident about not receiving that notice of termination. It allows people to put down roots and have that sense of security. The number one driver of homelessness is a notice to quit. Deputy Ó Broin is right, in that there is a churn of about every three and a half years, but this security of tenure will change that. The Deputy's pronouncements are made on a no-change basis but this will lengthen tenancies that by giving security of tenure to people. The major obstacle to security of tenure under existing regimes is that people can issue no-fault evictions. That will now come to an end for the majority of tenants and, for a minority of tenants, we are substantially restricting those opportunities and giving people at least six years. That is what is in here for tenants. Opposition Deputies have all referred to landlords. Most of the criticism of this Bill has come from landlords across right across the board.
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The Housing Commission recognised we could not continue with what we were doing. The Housing Agency investigated and recognised that we had some of the most restrictive rent controls in the world, which was killing supply of the homes that we need right across the country. The Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, said we had to move. We have to give people hope and we have to drive housing supply across the country. The Land Development Agency, LDA, has built 2,300 social, affordable and cost rental homes-----
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-----with 1,900 this year and a pipeline of 12,000. It is driving the supply and the building of homes. Does Deputy Hearne want to know why I accuse the Social Democrats in particular with regard to social media clips? He stood up and started using hyperbole about the Famine. Deputy Hayes, sitting beside him, stood up and started talking about the altar of greed. What did he do the minute he sat down? He looked over at Deputy Hearne, gave him a wink and Deputy Hearne gave a big smile. That is why I accuse the Social Democrats with regard to social media. It is performative effort in here every single day. At least there is an attempt at policy on the other side.
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This is about addressing the housing crisis in this country. We are bringing forward and implementing solutions. We are giving tenants security and we are giving certainty to tenants, landlords and investors so that we can drive supply. This is about giving hope and delivering homes for people. I want people in their homes right across this country, and that is what we are doing.
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We have had Housing Agency assessments.
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We have to drive the delivery and supply of homes. We know that if we do not do this, we will not get the supply that we need. We have had endless modelling over the years. It is always based on a no-change basis. This is going to bring the change that we need to deliver the supply of homes.
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I will address a couple of the issues that have been raised. If a tenant involuntarily leaves, the rent cannot be reset under these rules. That is very important. You will always have tenants who will voluntarily leave. The number of HAPs in this country has reduced by about 9,000, give or take. That is as a result of the significant increase in social and affordable housing we have been delivering. People will always leave tenancies voluntarily. If they do that, a rent can be reset if the landlord was going back out to the market but if a tenant is in any shape or form involuntarily put out of the property, there cannot be a reset.
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That is an additional protection.
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We have to drive up-----
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If the tenant breaches a contract, yes. In relation to the 240,000 tenancies and there being no change, I have said that multiple times, just as I have said multiple times that one child homeless is one child too many. Everything I am doing is about driving up the delivery of homes. The entire rental and housing market is always going to be dynamic, so I am not going to indulge the fantasy, as the Deputy refers to, of giving a date and a time for when rents are going to change.
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We know if we do not bring in changes, rents are only going in one direction and that is up. As important is the fact that if we do not bring in change, we are not going to get the supply for those people who are living at home and need somewhere to rent, or as the population increases. Our population has increased by about 810,000 people since 2014. That requires an average of about 250,000 new homes, which is about what has been delivered. We need to deliver more to solve the housing, rental and homelessness crises and that is at least what we are doing, so people have somewhere to be safe and secure in their own homes.
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I answered on the amendments.
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