It is hard to call this anything other than the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael rent-hike Bill. This is going to allow vulture funds and big landlords to hike up the rents of 60,000 people every year. That means thousands of euro extra will be paid in rent from 1 March. It is hard to believe. In fairness, Deputy Ó Laoghaire said it earlier. Whatever about the setting of the rules, there is a huge level of confusion on the part of landlords and we are going to have confusion from tenants right through to landlords. The Minister is starting as if we are dealing with a fully functional market, whereas I thought we all accepted that it is utterly dysfunctional, broken, and not working for anybody out there in any way, shape or form. Whatever small protections were provided by the rent pressure zones, they are gone. We are talking about a complete reset to market rents. I would have thought we all accepted - certainly I would accept, as well as a considerable number Members present and people outside on the street would accept - that rents are absolutely through the roof. They are utterly unaffordable. Now we are talking about resetting rents with no protections whatsoever. We talk about improved protections into the future, but how do we deal with the fact that rents are utterly unaffordable at the minute, yet we are allowing for new tenancies that are going to be at market rent? A long time ago we all thought there would have been some control on the market, but I cannot see it. The average price of a three-bedroom house in Louth in the third quarter of 2025 was €1,966, which was an 8.7% increase on the year before. Obviously the protections we did have were insufficient. I can only imagine what we will be looking at next year. I dread to think. We see the usual stuff when we check daft.ie. In Dundalk, the cost of a three-bedroom house is €2,100 per month. It is €1,150 per month for a studio apartment. It is €1,850 per month for a three-bedroom house. A two-bedroom house is €1,550 per month. It goes on, but not that far because the other thing we realise is that nobody can get a rental. Another issue is that all of us are inundated with people who have received notices to quit in the past while. We know the issues that arise for Louth County Council and other local authorities in trying to find a solution. We are talking with a lot of young people - but they are not all young - who are in severe circumstances, where they are about to be put out of their home. In some cases, the landlord is leaving and does allow an element of overholding. If it were not for that, we would have had a complete disaster. Did we ever imagine we would be looking at the current homeless figures? We used to be shocked when we were talking about 5,000, then it was 10,000, and now we are talking about 15,000. That is before we talk about the disgrace in relation to the percentage of children.

Sentiment score: -0.06

I do not see any solutions here for affordable and social housing. I do not see anything to stop the increases, or any move towards what we are calling for, which is a ban on rent increases for at least three years.

Sentiment score: -0.42

We accept that the market is dysfunctional and that these rules are not going to work. The Minister needs to do better. This is far too late.

Sentiment score: 0.27